UNITE THE STATES

Why should you want a strong central government?

It is entirely too easy for a corporation to control a single state,  the governor, state senators, and mayors of any state, especially poor ones will do whatever their corporate masters tell them to all in the name of bringing "jobs" to their state. Basically turning over the power of the state from elected official who are answerable to the voters, to unelected executives and possibly anonymous shareholders who are unremovable  and answer to no one.

Corporations have always seeked incentives and that is fair. But what has happened is that those incentives have grown to blackmail, ransoms, and extortion. Companies are now demanding (and getting) some if not all of the following;

Free land

Free infrastructure connections

Building costs paid for by the state

Moving expenses

Little to no taxation

Outright cash payments

All subsidized by the working class taxpayers who not only have to basically "buy" their own jobs, but end up financing the operations of the businesses they work for. Some estimates range from $10,000.00 to $200,000.00 in incentives traded for compensation of $20,000.00 to $40,000.00 per job provided. Since many of these companies don't have to file taxes, the states have no idea how much revenue they are actually giving up. But clearly in some cases it would be cheaper for the state to simply pay these workers to stay home.

There are even lobbying consultants who exist solely to get as much from states as they can, and they do a good job too. One of these consultants sued the company they were hired by for not pursuing even more incentives on the grounds it limited the consultants income by not being able to collect a percentage of the lost incentives.

And it never ends. Those companies keep coming back, threatening to move and take their jobs with them because they want this or that or got an offer from another state. A strong federal government can regulate (not a bad word) across state lines uniting them in a common interests and strengthening their bargaining position to prevent hem from being unfairly and unethically exploited

 

○ C. Erich Dunne  june, twenty thirteen.