Raleigh, N.C. – Despite heated rhetoric between Republican leaders and Gov. Bev Perdue, most North Carolina voters think a failed incentives proposal to build a new manufacturing facility in the state was a bad deal for taxpayers.
Gov. Perdue recently supported a proposal to offer a company nearly $100 million dollars in incentives, with $45 million being given immediately, to build a new manufacturing facility in southeastern North Carolina. The proposal was known as “Project Soccer,” and reportedly involved tire manufacturer Continental Tire. South Carolina ended up landing the Continental facility.
Sixty-one percent of voters either oppose all economic incentives of this type or said that this proposal amounted to a bad deal for taxpayers. Twenty-two percent of voters said the deal would have been good for North Carolina, and 15 percent said they do not know or are undecided.
Looking at voter opinion based on party affiliation, most Republicans (51 percent) and unaffiliated voters (50 percent) think this proposal was bad for taxpayers. Democratic voters are more evenly split as 31 percent said it would have been good for North Carolina while 29 percent think it was a bad deal. Voters in the Southeast, a proposed area for the company, are divided in their opinion of the failed proposal (32 percent bad deal – 29 percent deal was good).
“At a time of heightened awareness about the pitfalls of crony capitalism, it appears the majority of North Carolinians rejected the state’s latest attempt to merge big government and big business,” said Civitas Institute budget and tax policy analyst Brian Balfour.
The Civitas Poll is the only regular live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina. For more information on Civitas polling see http://www.nccivitas.org/category/poll/.
Full Text of Question:
“Governor Perdue recently supported a proposal to offer a company nearly $100 million dollars in incentives, with $45 million being given immediately, to build a new manufacturing facility in North Carolina. The company promised to create over 1,000 jobs by 2019. Under the proposal, funding cuts would take place in other areas of the state budget and taxpayer money would have been used to buy land currently owned by a Democratic State Senator and several donors to the governor’s campaign. The land owners would have made a profit of about one million dollars on the land. Republicans in the North Carolina legislature opposed the governor’s proposal. Which of the following statements comes closest to your opinion on this latest incentives proposal?”
This deal would have been good for North Carolina – 22%
This was a bad deal for North Carolina taxpayers – 41%
I oppose all economic incentives of this type – 20%
Don’t know / Undecided – 15%
Refused – 3%
For the full results and crosstabs, click here.
This poll of 600 likely 2012 general election voters in North Carolina was conducted October 17-18 2011 by National Research, Inc. of Holmdel, NJ. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of probable 2012 general election voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters interviewed had to have voted in 2006 or 2008 or be newly registered to vote since November 5, 2008. (November 5 is the day after the election)
The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in the 2006 or 2008 general elections or is newly registered since November 5, 2008.
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