Corporations are demanding all kinds of subsidies to locate in your communities and to provide you with jobs. They are the "job-creators", aren't they? Well, yes, in a capitalist organized society or any society controlled by a ruling class. However, a new bill just passed in the Pennsylvania legislature, and awaiting the governor's signature, may have taken things a bit too far (back). You may be shocked to learn, as I was, that this peculiar arrangement is already permitted in numerous states. This article says 19, but the supporting document reports 16.
Good Jobs First, which has researched this and other instances of corporate welfare, found that laws in 16 states have allowed more than 2,700 companies to pocket $700 million of their workers' tax dollars.On the other hand, this arrangement has a certain perverse logic to it. If tax money typically goes back to companies via government inducements or subsidies, why not short circuit this process and directly give tax money to the companies? What we are seeing is the endgame of capitalism, a new, 21st century version of feudalism.
