Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Just What We Need (Not) . . .

It's difficult enough for the Utica area to compete in the world marketplace for jobs given New York's high cost/high regulatory burden status.

But now we have to compete with other areas of the state in a state-government "contest" for a share of a pot of money we are paying into?

This is apparently "Economic Development" a la Cuomo II.  Per the OD:
Cuomo's twist would pool $1 billion in tax breaks and aid for construction and infrastructure as prizes for the best proposals in 10 regions around the state that would compete for the resources.
What is state government's track record in deciding what is "best" for business?  The more "economic development" we fund, the less we seem to have to show for it.


This program really seems to be about awarding prizes to those people that will bring the most votes to Cuomo. How about a $ billion in tax cuts for everyone instead?

To put it bluntly, this sucks.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can anyone say "Luther Forest"?
Sure you can......
and kiss nanotech projects for this area goodbye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Forest_Technology_Campus

Anonymous said...

This pretty much kills the Marcy Ultra-Mega-Super-Nanocenter, and that's probably not an accident. There's no way the state is going to drop a dime of nano-money in the Utica/Rome area when the Albany area is clearly the leader in nanotech.

RPP said...

If it wasn't our money, it would be laughable!

Anonymous said...

Hey-were you able to make it to the pep rally on this at SUNYIT this (Thursday) afternoon? So now we're going to have regional boards coming up with ideas to compete for these funds. What I don't understand is why all the hand-holding? Can't we just lower taxes, lower energy rates, and stop making businesses jump through hoop after hoop of regulations? Let the businesses get about the business of creating jobs and leave the government out of it. I can't see it being anything than more of the same--the "select few" will continue to get the gravy while the rest of us will be taxed and regulated to death (or exodus to another state).

Anonymous said...

How much money are we spending in Marcy on that road to nowhere?

Buzzer said...

I thought we all agreed to stop talking about the stupid "nano-center."

RPP said...

Yes, reduce taxes, cut red tape ansd restrictive regulations and create vehicles for cheaper power. No, we don not need this program or more economic development groups run by the usual suspects. Of course, they'll probably now hire another staff. Historically, there is an interesting observation. Cuomo,Sr. when governor, led the creation of regional groups as well. Ours was called the Heartland Alliance and I was its head. But, we were a single purpose non political group that went on business recruiting trips. One resulted in Orion Bus, then Bus Industries of America, coming here. We spent no taxpayer dollars. Cuomo #2' takes the regional approach by throwing lots of our dollars around. This will become a politcal program.

Anonymous said...

A chip fab plant will use 5.5 million gallons of water a day and the plant MUST have a secondary water source for a back-up.

We are taking land, building roads and fighting to move wetlands, yet the biggest factor to building the chip plant has not been addressed, which is water. Why has nobody picked up on this?

Anonymous said...

What would happen to EDGE if it was announced that a chip plant was a dead deal? It would probably fold. EDGE's chip plant farce is just a way for a select few to feed off the rest of us. It's a sham.