Pat Garofalo, Author at Public Seminar

Economy

Corporate Handouts Kill Small Businesses. So Why Do Politicians Continue to Offer Them Up?

Voters think corporate subsidies help the local economy

June 2, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ One of the major problems with communities doling out tax breaks and other favors to large corporations is that doing so disadvantages their own, local, usually smaller, businesses. After all, those monetary favors lower costs and offer subsidies for the big guys, making it easier for them to “compete” against ...

Corporate Handouts Kill Small Businesses. So Why Do Politicians Continue to Offer Them Up?

Columnists

The Curious Case of Andrew Yang

Running for New York City mayor turned a fiery corporate handout critic into something else

May 25, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ During the 2020 presidential campaign, it was businessman Andrew Yang who was the most explicitly anti-corporate tax incentive candidate in the field. He literally had a policy page on his website calling to “End Bidding Wars for Corporate Relocation.” His correct reasoning?: “These subsidies amount to money that could otherwise go to ...

Economy

Apple’s Deal with North Carolina Is a Worm in the State’s Finances for Decades to Come

Companies do not need to be bribed to set up shop in the state’s Research Triangle

May 5, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Three years ago, Apple snubbed North Carolina when it chose a new campus location instead, like so many tech corporations these days, deciding on Austin, Texas. But playing hard to get ultimately turned out to be very lucrative for the iPhone and iPad designer: last week, North Carolina announced that ...

Apple’s Deal with North Carolina Is a Worm in the State’s Finances for Decades to Come

Economy

Foxconn, Take Two

Wisconsin’s new deal is less bad, but not good

April 28, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ The Foxconn deal is dead. Long live the Foxconn deal. Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn made a massive pact with Wisconsin in early 2017 under which it would have received more than $4 billion in state and local tax incentives and other benefits, in exchange for building a factory that would employ 13,000 ...

Politics

Congress’s Incentive Cease-Fire

How a COVID relief bill could temporarily slow the tax break race to the bottom

April 21, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Though corporate tax giveaway problems often arise at the state and local level, federal lawmakers could technically implement a fix for the whole nation. For decades, in fact, a few policymakers have pushed for Congress to use its power to regulate interstate commerce to end the race to the bottom ...

Economy

How States Can Rein in Big Tech and Encourage Entrepreneurs

When it comes to the App store, Apple and Google need to be reined in

April 8, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Apple and Google own pretty much 100 percent of the market when it comes to app distribution, and they use that control to take hefty fees — up to 30 percent — from dollars you spend on app downloads and in-app purchases through Apple’s App Store and Google’s Google Play. ...

How States Can Rein in Big Tech and Encourage Entrepreneurs

Capitalism

Bass Pro Shop’s Bait and Switch

How weak anti-trust laws enable a retail behemoth’s predatory behavior and fails communities

April 7, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____Back in 2004, Independence, Missouri issued more than $70 million in bonds in order to finance a new retail development anchored by a Bass Pro Shops, one of those mega-sized outdoors goods stores where you can buy everything from guns and tents to winter coats and hiking boots. But as ...

Economy

State Secrets

Let’s ban non-disclosure agreements in government economic development deals

March 23, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Sometime later this year, the Fort Wayne, Indiana, city council will vote on whether to give a 10-year, $16 million property tax break to the builder of a new warehouse. There is an issue, however, one that goes beyond the potential loss of public money. The city council members – ...

Economy

Location, Location, Location!

Why tax breaks are such a negligible part of corporate decision-making

March 18, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Last month, Macy’s received a slew of job creation tax credits from the Ohio Tax Credit Authority to expand a warehouse in Jackson Township, a city located within easy reach of both Canton and Cleveland. One of the township trustees — which is akin to a city council member — had ...

Politics

A Better Way to Do Corporate Giveaways

How legislation would put a stop to the most senseless of senseless state competitions

March 8, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ The debate around corporate tax breaks usually centers on a specific giveaway. Should Virginia have given hundreds of millions of dollars to Amazon for its so-called HQ2? Does Netflix really need $24 million, plus an undisclosed amount of property tax reductions, from New Mexico? But playing whack-a-mole and attempting to ...

Politics

Nevada Gambles on a Tech Hub in the Desert

It’s not too late to stop it

February 17, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ As a general rule, anytime a lawmaker rolls out some hot new economic policy idea with the word “zone” in it, I start to get nervous. We all should. It’s usually less a way of helping struggling areas than an efficient plan for transitioning state resources to wealthy investors. But Nevada’s Democratic ...

Nevada Gambles on a Tech Hub in the Desert

Politics

Break Up the Tech Monopoly

No corporation should be so big or systemically important that it can credibly threaten to cut an entire nation off from the news

February 3, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

Australian leaders want Google to pay news outlets for articles the tech giant serves up to users. In response, Google threatened to pull its search engine from the entire country. Not just news, but democracy is at stake. Google’s threat sounds absurd. But it actually happened. And Google wasn’t alone: Facebook also ...

Pat Garofalo

Corporate Handouts Kill Small Businesses. So Why Do Politicians Continue to Offer Them Up?

Voters think corporate subsidies help the local economy

The Curious Case of Andrew Yang

Running for New York City mayor turned a fiery corporate handout critic into something else

Apple’s Deal with North Carolina Is a Worm in the State’s Finances for Decades to Come

Companies do not need to be bribed to set up shop in the state’s Research Triangle

Foxconn, Take Two

Wisconsin’s new deal is less bad, but not good

Congress’s Incentive Cease-Fire

How a COVID relief bill could temporarily slow the tax break race to the bottom

How States Can Rein in Big Tech and Encourage Entrepreneurs

When it comes to the App store, Apple and Google need to be reined in

Bass Pro Shop’s Bait and Switch

How weak anti-trust laws enable a retail behemoth’s predatory behavior and fails communities

State Secrets

Let’s ban non-disclosure agreements in government economic development deals

Location, Location, Location!

Why tax breaks are such a negligible part of corporate decision-making

A Better Way to Do Corporate Giveaways

How legislation would put a stop to the most senseless of senseless state competitions

Nevada Gambles on a Tech Hub in the Desert

It’s not too late to stop it

Break Up the Tech Monopoly

No corporation should be so big or systemically important that it can credibly threaten to cut an entire nation off from the news

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