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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Monday, June 13, 2011 at 20:32:01 :
In Reply to: Have you ever been south of Boise ? ? ? posted by Tom @ Snake River [67.158.181.209] on Monday, June 13, 2011 at 20:12:05 :
My concern would be if the state and local governments are so desperate that they end up subsidizing this "economic development zone" with public money. That happens time after time and the taxpayers always lose. I was real suspicious of all those referendums they had on the ballot last time that were supposed to allow various local quasi-public agencies (hospitals, airports, etc) to do something funny and not very clearly explained in the way of selling bonds to be used for some sort of development projects. Now it's coming out what they had in mind. Here, we're already paying taxes to bail out the final expenses of one bankrupt hospital that, among other things, made loans to its board members and then forgave them. There's just too many opportunities for shenanigans whenever you get into these "public/private partnerships" for "economic development".
If the Chinese want to buy 50 square miles of desert and build some sort of factories on it, fine, but I don't want to subsidize it. For that matter, how about if we demand that they build all-new factories using all-new new equipment, all made in the USA and then buy all their components and sub-assemblies from other American companies? After all, that's what they demand of American companies that want to set up shop in China. The difference of course is we're not in any position to demand anything for China. They have the money and we don't. They say "jump!" and we say "how high?". At this point, I suppose we should just be glad to get some of their/our money back.