Part of the Sunday, December 4, 2016 CBS's 60 Minutes show was about The Golden Triangle and Higgins. Link. Higgins has worked hard to bring manufacturing jobs to Mississippi, which lost a lot of manufacturing jobs over the past few decades.
There is more detail about what has been done here, from which I quote.
To win the Yokohama tire plant Joe Max Higgins "installed water and sewer systems on the proposed site for the plant, and he secured $30 million from the state for a new access road so trucks could reach the factory."
That doesn't sound like public-private funding to me.
"Yokohama agreed to build the $300 million plant in the Golden Triangle. Higgins secured about $100 million in incentives and an estimated $200 million in tax breaks from the state of Mississippi and the counties that make up the Golden Triangle."
The incentives and tax breaks are worth as much as the cost of building the plant. Is that crony capitalism? The devil may be in the details. The plant is expected to bring 2,000 jobs. Assume a generous $100,000 wages per job, a figure given for one worker in the 60 Minutes show. State income tax = $4,660 for single and $4,470 for married. I'll use $4,565. 2,000 x $4,565 = $9.13 million. 200/9.13 = 21.9, the number of years to offset the $200 million in tax breaks. (A lower average wage would lead to more years.) That doesn't include the $30 million for a road, whatever the water and sewer system cost, or $100 million in incentives. Hmm, that suggests crony capitalism to me.
Of course, the people who get those jobs are going to be very appreciative. But it doesn’t sound to me so great for the rest of the people of Mississippi.
Milton Friedman wisely observed that we spend our own money on ourselves very carefully. We spend other people’s money on ourselves less carefully. But the least carefully spent money is other people’s money on other people.
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