When the American people no longer believe that this is a place where only their willingness to work hard and to act with honor and integrity and ingenuity determines their success in life, then we’ll have a bunch of people sitting on a couch waiting for their next government check,I bring this up because I am honestly not sure how the $102.4 million Panasionic received from the Christie administration in tax credits (to help incite a headquarter move on the electronic giant's part) services Gov. Christie's dream of an America where "honor and integrity and ingenuity determines their success in life".
I don't quite get why this snakeoil keeps getting sold, let alone bought. The logic Gov. Christie is presenting here, from what I gather, is that tax breaks for individual citizens, particularly low-income citizens, is somehow a signal for the end of an America where "honor and integrity and ingenuity determines their success in life"; while tax preferences for large multinational conglomerates is just a part of 'staying competitive'. Not only is this internally inconsistent, it is just naked, anti-competitive corporate welfare disguised as pro-market policy. Markets need its participants, as well as firms, to be competitive.
I think the most flagrant thing about this, is what a horrible deal it is for the taxpayers of New Jersey. According to the self-reported jobs creation projections,
the companies have promised to add 2,364 jobs, or $387,537 in tax credits per job, over the next decade.Gov. Christe is giving Panasonic, Goya Foods and Prudential Insurance almost $400,000 for each job they create? Only 2,364 jobs over the next decade? And he has the gall to complain about citizens whose poverty is so abject they perhaps need public assistance? Absurd.
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