In this article, N&O editors decry the current state of North Carolina’s “economic incentives” programs.
Right now, those policies, intended to attract or retain job-creating businesses, are in disarray. Incentives have become so entwined with politics that it’s impossible to say just what the state would, or wouldn’t, do to attract a big new employer. That level of uncertainty doesn’t help anyone – or help create a single job.
Are they seriously surprised that government incentives have become “entwined with policitcs”? What do they expect when the political class decides to empower itself by granting privileges to a select few companies? Expressing surprise that economic incentives have become entwined with politics is akin to being shocked that children prefer candy over broccoli.
But the editors reveal themselves to be perfectly comfortable with the state’s crony capitalism, they just feel the sytem needs to be tweaked a little bit. They use as a starting point some suggestions by the far-left N.C. Budget & Tax Center, basically minor changes to the form of incentives and token calls for “greater transparency.”
How hypocritical that so-called “progressives” such as the N&O editors and Budget & Tax Center are the leading cheerleaders for crony capitalism – a system that dispenses state favors and privileges to the politically-connected corporations – but then they accuse free market advocates of being corporate shills.
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