More Corporate Welfare Failure

I blogged here recentlyabout Gov. Perdue’s questionable claims taking credit for more than “50,000 new jobs for this state” as a result of the state’s corporate welfare efforts. Her claim, which she also included in her state of the state address, actually refers to jobs promisedby the companies receiving corporate welfare handouts and privileges.  

As this N&O article points out, another group of companies in the Triangle area are having to terminate their incentives grants because they are not meeting their goals of promised jobs. This just merely provides further evidence that the public needs to be made aware of Perdue’s misleading statements on jobs.

Moreover, we should be reminded that there are always opportunty costs involved when politicians manage the economy. What businesses would have been started or expanded if so many resources had not been directed toward these politically-priveleged companies? Would these businesses have created even more jobs – jobs that would have been more permanent?

Just because the grant money (or at least most of it) may be paid back to the state, the corporate welfare handouts still come at a heavy cost. Politicians should get out of the business of crony capitalism – stop dispensing favors to the politically-connected corporations and free up the market process to allow for entrepreneurs to compete on a level playing field to most efficiently meet the most urgent needs of consumers. When politicians interfere with this process, we are all made worse off. And more importantly, we all lose more of our liberty as more control over the means of production is concentrated in the hands of the ruling class.