Continental Tire announced today that it is moving its headquarters from Charlotte across the state line to Lancaster County, SC.
But wait, you ask, didn’t we just spend $60 million of taxpayer dollars on tire companies to keep workers here in NC?
Yep, we did, but that money is going to companies located in key constituencies in Eastern NC (Tony Rand and Jim Hunt’s hometowns), not a corporate headquarters in Charlotte.
Apparently, jobs in Charlotte (or anywhere else in NC as we pointed out here) aren’t as important as jobs in the hometowns of Democratic Party leaders.
This is just one more example of why the corporate welfare game is inherently unfair. The state now chooses which jobs are more important than others and subsidizes the "winners", and when the ability for that happens, the ability for the appearance that politics and/or corruption is distorting the picture enters as well. End it all, treat every business the same and get the foul stench of favoritism out of the corporate handouts.
Makes me even more doubtful VW will put its plant in Rocky Mount.