States Pay for Jobs, but It Doesn't Always Pay Off

INDIANAPOLIS A huge, light-gray building, trimmed jauntily in blue, rises from the rolling, grassy fields on the far side of the runways at Indianapolis International Airport. From the approach road, the building seems active. But the parking lots are empty and, inside, the 12 elaborately equipped hangar bays are silent and dark. It is as if the owner of a lavishly furnished mansion had suddenly walked away, leaving everything in place.


That is what happened. United Airlines got $320 million in taxpayer money to build what is by all accounts the most technologically advanced aircraft maintenance center in America. But six months ago, the company walked away, leaving the city and state governments out all that money, and no new tenant in sight.


The shuttered maintenance center is a stark, and unusually vivid, reminder of the risk inherent in gambling public money on corporate ventures. Yet the city and state are stepping up subsidies to other companies that offer, as United once did, to bring high-paying jobs and sophisticated operations to Indiana. Many municipal and state governments are doing the same, escalating a bidding war for a shrunken pool of jobs in America despite the worst squeeze in years on their budgets.

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Would United Airlines have built such a fine center without public subsidies or tax forgiveness? A United spokesman, Jeff Green, declined to even address the question so many years after the fact. Mr. Moore acknowledged, however, that even without a subsidy, the airline probably would have built the center somewhere in the United States.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&e=5&u=/nyt/statespayforjobsbutitdoesntalwayspayoff

What these idiots don't get is that labor can now be done overseas for a fraction of the cost, and no amount of govt. subsidies can counteract that.

What these states should have invested their money in is a strong public educational system. Teach your populace well and in turn, they'll develop their own businesses which will employ people.

You know those huge debts so many countries owe to the World Bank/IMF?

Most of them were taken out (by US installed 'strongmen') in order to build infrastructure (roads, dams, power plants) for US corporations' benefits. Now, the dictator's gone, the corporation is often gone, but the debt remains behind.