McCrory’s Commerce Make-Over: Is it really all that different from what we already have?
We got treated to a “major” announcement from Gov. Pat and his team in Burlington yesterday. The administration will be creating a new non-profit to handle a lot of the economic development work that has been handled within the state Department of Commerce’s bureaucracy:
[…] The overhaul, designed to get the private sector more involved in luring new businesses to the state, is similar to efforts undertaken by several other Republican governors in recent years.
It would basically gut the state’s Commerce Department, shifting much of the work done there to a new public-private partnership tasked with negotiating corporate economic incentives packages, boosting the state’s imports and exports and promoting travel and tourism.
The partnership would use taxpayer money, and be governed by a board of directors that would be led by the governor and include several state legislators as well as businessmen. McCrory said the agency would make North Carolina both more nimble and more aggressive in pursuing jobs. […]
We could call it “Partners in Progress”. That group has brought hundreds of thousands of jobs to Moore County. Could call it The Tax Dollar Black Hole, but that would fit most government programs.
It’s called a “money wheel” and is anything but non-profit.
It’s a way the political class legally steals from the public and funnels money out of the public til and ultimately into the political class’ hands.
Here’s how it works: The electeds create the “private-public venture” in the name of job creation. The money goes out of the public til and into the “business leader’s” pockets in the form of incentives, quid pro quos (fewer fingerprints), or other creative spokes on the money wheel. The money then rolls back into the political class at re-election time in the form of campaign contributions at some fat cat’s swanky digs giving a party to, get this, “honor” the member of the political class for their “honorable endeavours”. Nice and tidy with no fingerprints and the big money wheel keeps turning.
The political class message to the public: “Thanks Suckers for electing us!”
We need a non-profit to monitor the non-profits who are monitoring the non-profits. It is hard to keep up with all the non-profits who seem to be “not doing” the same job. But they do have many well-paid staff who dress well and drink a lot of trendy coffee. But if you ever get depressed just ask one of these economic development non-profits to make a presentation to your Rotary Club. They sure can paint a pretty picture. Of course none of what they say is worth a tinkers’. I have heard many such presentations by these various groups telling us of the wonderful future of the Global Transpark. Now when they tell me these predictions I just laugh. If I could only land one of those cushy jobs making stupid predictions. These non-profit guys got a good thing going. Must have a really influential brother-in-law,
I would like to see a federal law taxing companies for 110% of any economic development grants from state or local government, directly or indirectly. That would bring this sick corporate welfare to a screeching halt, and stop states and counties from trying to compete to dish out corporate welfare, and companies playing that for all it is worth.
Know how you can tell if someone is on a non-profit’s payroll?
They update their Facebook page over a hundred times per day. Of course they ain’t got much else to do. Computer solitaire gets boring.