[amsilprotag]

There was a great Bloomberg Decrypted podcast a couple weeks ago weighing the costs and benefits for a small town in offering a multi-million dollar subsidy for thousands of low-skill Amazon warehouse jobs. Is it really worth subsidizing at all when the government will have to fund various welfare programs to cover the difference between the ~$10.00/hr paid and a livable wage? But since towns compete and prestige is awarded to politicians who win deals, towns race each other to near zero expected value.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-14/your-tax-...

[closeparen]

But they already have to pay welfare for those people, right? Or is Amazon bringing new low income residents?

[koolba]

Exactly. It's $10/hr less that has to be covered than before. Plus the ware house drives local commercial traffic, workers have to eat, etc.

[nommm-nommm]

So they weren't eating before?

[koolba]

No the point is that even at $10/hour it's better than the same people not working at all.

Do you disagree?

[emodendroket]

The New York Times also did a big piece showing that these deals were almost always bad ones. The thing is that politicians have a simply ideological commitment to not intervene more directly.

[Buge]

The politicians do intervene directly

>cities compete to offer the biggest tax

So it would be actually better if they did less intervening, by not offering tax breaks to Amazon.

[emodendroket]

When I say "intervene directly" I mean more like directly employing people.

[Apocryphon]

Makes me wonder if political deals to bring in military-industrial complex jobs at military bases and arms manufacturing plants and the like are any better. They at least provide better compensation to the workers, right?

[dogma1138]

Towns like to attract military bases because they bring in a large population that is employed requires no loca services (since it's handled by the armed forces), usually well behaved which spends its income locally. Bases also bring 100s of civilian jobs and support local businesses.

[emodendroket]

Yeah, but military Keynesianism also involves a lot of the taxpayer dollars lining the pockets of arms manufacturers and contributes to belligerent foreign policy. It's worth asking whether the same money could be used to employ people to do something other than building more F-35s.

[Arizhel]

You're thinking large-scale, not small-scale. Locally, building more F-35s is good for the local economy and keeps people employed, and the negative effects are minimal if any. Nationally, it's a different picture. Why would local politicians care about things on a national scale, rather than what's good in the short term for their little town where they're trying to get re-elected?

[nommm-nommm]

Military bases also pay no local taxes so they don't increase their tax revenue.

[dogma1138]

They pay certain taxes e.g sales taxes, they pay salaries to civilians that work on base and they do not really use any of the local services that are tax funded, police, fire department, medical and social services all provided by the DOD.

[nommm-nommm]

No, the federal government does not pay state or local sales tax. Bases also open and operate large sales tax free stores for service member and family use (base exchanges).

Military housing, as long as owned directly by the federal government, doesn't pay property taxes and the residents do use local police, fire dept, and schools as well as drive on local roads. Any local or state services are fully available to to them just as any other resident. I've also personally seen both local and state police respond to emergencies at the base.

Service members can also elect to file income taxes in the state they lived in when they were called to active duty rather than their duty station location.

I'm not saying military bases don't add to the local economy, they do, just not anything like a civilian operation of a similar size.

[emodendroket]

It's certainly not the most efficient way to generate employment but these guys know where their bread is buttered.

[jcurbo]

Mother Jones did a major piece on this several years ago.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f...