Don't Read This ...

On an empty stomach:

Since the mid-1990s, state and local governments in Florida have given hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks, cash and other incentives to companies that promise to create jobs here, but the benefits to workers can be short-lived or hard to track, a newspaper reported Sunday.

This fiscal year, Florida's economic development efforts could cost state government more than $900 million, according to an examination by The St. Petersburg Times. That money could pay for nearly 11,000 new teachers and next year's tuition increase for more than 250,000 university students, the newspaper found.

Gov. Jeb Bush's office said incentives are needed to overcome bids from other states and countries that spend even more than Florida. Incentives generate tens of thousands of high-wage jobs, billions of dollars in state investment, a business-friendly image and a higher living standard for Floridians, officials said.

Uh, no they don't. The St Pete Times research disclosed the following:



• Thousands of jobs created with the help of incentives materialize briefly, then disappear. Some are wiped out by cost-cutting moves, bankruptcies or mergers. Other jobs go overseas.

State and local governments paid or promised the financial services company now known as JPMorgan Chase more than $21 million in benefits, plus a tax break of up to $74.5 million over 20 years, to create more than 2,800 jobs in Tampa. In January, the company announced it would lay off 1,900 employees.

• A decade after the Legislature began increasing corporate benefits under then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, Florida's average wage in 2003 was $34,520, which still trails the national average of $38,490.

• Florida's incentive laws contain vague language and loopholes that allow businesses to collect for low-paying jobs. For example, a company that promises jobs with a certain average salary can hire a few highly paid executives, skewing the average wage upward.

• Florida's incentives include dozens of tax breaks that are embedded in the tax code rather than paid outright. Because businesses claim them as credits, deductions or exemptions on their tax returns, which are confidential, these tax breaks often fall outside the scrutiny of the public and even state legislators.

• Although the Legislature keeps adding incentives, it rarely checks to see if they are paying off. And by law, the state doesn't have to release information, including the wages and taxes that companies getting incentives pay.

"Benefits from incentives fleeting".

Now somebody ought to study the relationship between companies that receive incentives and contributions to GOoPers.