State, Local Officials See Pluses, Minuses of Trump’s Carrier Deal
http://www.wsj.com/articles/state-l...ses-minuses-of-trumps-carrier-deal-1480704883
ome state and local officials cheered the incoming Trump administration‘s effort to save jobs at Carrier Corp., but others worried that it could intensify competition between states to hold on to jobs and exacerbate a rush to grant tax incentives that have taken big chunks out of state budgets in some places.
“The fact that the Trump administration is aggressively fighting for American jobs is a good thing,” said South Carolina Republican state Sen. Wes Climer, a financial adviser.
But he said the Trump administration’s lauding of state incentives might escalate a growing competition among states.
Subsidies offered by states to companies have been on an upward trend for decades, apart from periodic economic downturns. Varying state disclosure laws make tracking a total national figure or state dollar amounts impossible, say experts.
An analysis by a professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis
about a decade ago found that states offered a total of $70 billion in subsidies annually.
“I’m sure we’re above that now,” said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a left-leaning think tank that tracks economic-development subsidies, saying the study was still the best number available.
Carrier’s parent, United Technologies Corp., announced this week it would keep open an Indiana furnace factory it had planned to move to Mexico, saving 800 jobs, after receiving a phone call from President-elect Donald Trump and a state tax-incentive package worth $7 million over 10 years. According to government and union officials, Carrier previously said it expected to save about $65 million a year by shifting plant operations to Mexico.
Mr. LeRoy said the Carrier deal would do little to alter larger forces driving relocation decisions nationwide.
“We’re really glad there’s more attention being paid to manufacturing jobs, but this looks like a one-off,” he said. “It’s not a systemic solution.”
In Louisiana, which hands out about $1 billion a year in annual tax exemptions to companies that meet certain targets, a $1 billion budget gap looms after certain temporary tax increases expire, said Greg Albrecht, chief economist at the nonpartisan legislative fiscal office in Louisiana.
But he said he doesn’t think the Carrier agreement will have any impact on how his state approaches corporate tax incentives.
The Indiana deal seems like a “one-off,” he said, adding, “You may have more than that one one-off event from the president at the federal level. I can’t perceive us here doing anything in response to that.”
Mr. Albrecht said the Carrier deal could prompt some U.S. companies to threaten to move jobs to Mexico as a way to extract financial benefits. “I think we’re creating a moral hazard issue that’s bigger than we’ve got now,” he said.
Louisiana State Sen. Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb, a Democrat, who sits on the Revenue & Fiscal Affairs Committee said while she considers the deal a positive for the jobs that were saved in Indianapolis, she is concerned about the positions that will still be relocated.
“In order to increase jobs for this country, you aren’t going to be able to piecemeal it.”
Mr. Fox said he doesn’t think this will have a widespread effect on how states dole out incentives.
He pointed out that many states have long used much larger tax breaks to lure or retain companies, including when Tennessee enticed Volkswagen to build a plant in Chattanooga, which began production in 2011.
More recently, incentives offered by Tennessee helped persuade Volkswagen to expand production in Chattanooga rather than in Mexico, he said, proving that “Mexico doesn’t always win on these even without the president being involved.”
New Jersey Sen. Michael Doherty, a Republican who has been an outspoken critic of many state tax incentive deals, hailed the Carrier agreement.
“I think President-elect Trump made a great deal,” Mr. Doherty said. “If he can maintain those 1,000-plus jobs in Indiana as opposed to losing them to a foreign country and the cost is a reported $7 million, that’s a bargain.”
Mr. Doherty compared the Carrier deal to the $82 million in tax incentives New Jersey awarded in 2014 to the Philadelphia 76ers to build a practice facility in Camden, N.J. That project is expected to create 250 new jobs, according to state records.
“I just think New Jersey has been making bad deals,” Mr. Doherty said. “We just need to make better deals.”
A spokeswoman for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority said that state tax incentives aren’t disbursed until state officials confirm that the project delivered the agreed-upon jobs and capital investment. The tax incentives offered to the 76ers anticipated a private investment of $82 million in the practice facility, the spokeswoman said.
Since 2013, New Jersey has awarded $4.8 billion in tax incentives to 259 projects, according to state officials. The projects are expected to create about 33,300 new jobs, 26,100 construction jobs and keep more than 26,600 jobs that were at risk of leaving the state.
In Gary, Ind.—a former thriving steel city struggling to attract jobs back after years of white flight and crime—
business people say that the Carrier plant deal is encouraging but hope it would be part of a thoughtful strategy to keep businesses in all parts of the state.
“We are hoping that this kind of benevolence extends beyond a single company and beyond Indianapolis,” said Chuck Hughes, executive director of Gary’s chamber of commerce.
Lou Mavrakis, mayor of Monessen, Pa., which has become symbol of Rust Belt deindustrialization since Mr. Trump visited the city in July, said the Carrier deal has given him hope the president-elect will work out a similar deal in his community.
“I know he had to give some tax breaks to keep them there, but what the hell is the difference?” said Mr. Mavrakis, a Democrat who has blamed both Democrats and Republicans for failing to prevent the loss of thousands of jobs in the region south of Pittsburgh.
“This country could give billions of dollars to foreign countries that hate us,” he added. “This election taught both Democrats and Republicans you cannot forget the communities that built this country.”