[peterwwillis]

> If they screw that up, well that's on them.

Giving the incentives is the screw up. Not how they implement it. Even though they often implement stupid policies and ignore the things they actually need to pay for. In many cases, states and local governments lose hundreds of millions, if not billions, trying to attract investment which doesn't pay off.

Kansas City lost 331 million in tax revenue due to horrible policies that incentivized moving jobs a mile across a river to a different state. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/05/04/476799218/epis... http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article183014956.html (video embedded, pls 2 watch)

Kentucky gave tens of millions in tax breaks to build a Noah's Ark theme park. http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/us/noahs-ark-kentucky/index.ht...

New Jersey wants to give Amazon $7 Billion in tax breaks. It still has not invested money in fixing its broken public transit system. https://www.wsj.com/articles/newark-offers-7-billion-in-ince...