Surviving Capitalism (Not) : States, cities hand out billions in tax abatements

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

States, cities hand out billions in tax abatements

Click here to access article by Nancy Hanover from World Socialist Web Site.

To some, it may come as a surprise that the bankrupt City of Detroit and the hard-hit State of Michigan are subsidizing the Big Three automakers, the pharmaceutical industry, energy companies and virtually every large Michigan business. But a massive giveaway—“corporate welfare,” both locally and nationally—is bankrupting municipalities everywhere as shown by reports from Demos (“The Detroit Bankrupcty”), the New York Times (“United States of Subsidies”) and Good Jobs First (“Megadeals”).

Although this corporate feeding at the public trough has been going on for some time, it appears that the practice has been accelerating in recent years. I recently saw this in my own back yard when Boeing corporation was awarded all kinds of tax write-offs, subsidies, and worker givebacks to keep production in the area and to prevent the undermining of the local economy. Workers and local populations are being threatened with the destruction of their economy if they don't bend to the will of corporate giants. This recalls the old Mafia practice of extorting "protection money" from merchants.