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.