Another Case For Tax Simplification

As you may have heard, our illustrious Governor and junior Senator brought a new Toyota/Hino plant to Williamstown this week "creating" 80 jobs. (yes, out-of-staters, politicians get a major bounce in the polls by getting credit for creating 80 jobs)

The Governor is rather proud of himself because he didn't have to drain the state treasury dry in grants and incentives to land this plant. He just merely waived some portions of our repressive tax system and obtained 11 acres at six figures per acre adjacent to the plant.

Chris Stirewalt of the State Journal chimes in with a great piece on what we have learned from the Hino Plant's announcement....

It was a nice play, and, as mentioned above, it has future potential.
But it was hard not to think about what the plant isn't.

First, it isn't even half of the jobs lost in nearby counties in the past couple of months. It certainly isn't much compared to the more than 1,000 mining and manufacturing jobs that left the state in the past year.

But the cruelest reminder of the real economic landscape was that the plant that will house the new Hino facility was once where 300 people worked making lights and wiring.

That plant, landed under a complicated incentive scheme in the Caperton administration, operated for nine years and then shut down. And we've seen that same story play out again and again -- grants, tax breaks and loans are enough to lure companies here but not to keep them.

And I'll not mention the particular cruelty of leaving existing employers to watch as new ones get the goodies, soak them up and then skip town.