Boeing demands billions in taxpayer handouts

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2013/dec/13/boeing-demands-billions-taxpayer-handouts/

Friday, Dec. 13, 2013
Jay Bookman

Boeing recently declared itself a free agent and asked states to submit a list of financial inducements they will offer the aircraft maker. In return, Boeing offers to locate its new 777X airliner assembly plant, as well as the 8,500 jobs that come with it, in the state with the most generous package.

Among Boeing’s demands, according to confidential documents leaked to the press:

• “Site at no cost, or very low cost, to project.”

• “Facilities at no cost, or significantly reduced cost.”

• “Infrastructure improvements provided by the location.”

• Public subsidies for “procuring equipment/tooling” and in “recruiting, evaluating and training” employees

• “Entire applicable tax structure including corporate income tax, franchise tax, property tax, sales/use tax, business license/gross receipts tax and excise taxes to be significantly reduced.”

In other words, hard-pressed taxpayers are being asked to provide a free site, build a free factory, finance all infrastructure for the plant, train workers for the plant, buy equipment for the plant and pretty much surrender all tax revenue that the plant might generate. This, to benefit a company that projects a profit of $6.7 billion in 2013 and whose stock price has soared 77 percent in the past year.

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It’s worth noting that many of the states groveling for Boeing’s business — North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Utah, Alabama, Missouri, Texas, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Wisconsin — are led by Republicans who otherwise champion a hardy version of free-market conservatism and who condemn what they call the “welfare state” and the taxpayer subsidies that support it. For example, every state listed above has blocked expansion of Medicaid for its lower-income citizens through Obamacare, in most cases arguing that state taxpayers simply can’t afford it.

In Georgia’s case, the decision means that up to 600,000 of its citizens will lose their chance at having health insurance, most of it financed by the federal government. Overall, it will cost the state $40 billion in federal funds over the next decade as well as some 70,000 new jobs, according to a study by a health-economics expert at Georgia State University. A similar story can be told about every state on the list.

Because as you know, taxpayers subsidizing health care for their people is socialism, while taxpayers subsidizing shareholders of a $100-billion out-of-state corporation is just bidness.


http://www.seattleweekly.com/home/949861-129/boeing-mcnerney-ceo-dick-jim-move

By Matt Driscoll Fri., Nov 15 2013

In 2012, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney took home nearly $27.5 million [27,500,000] in annual compensation. The staggering number marked a 20% increase from a year earlier. Oh, and the value of his pension rose by nearly $1.81 million. If he retires right now he’ll get $265,575 a month.

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Citing a need to stay “competitive,” and threatening like spoiled schoolchildren to take 777X work elsewhere if they didn’t get what they wanted, McNerney and his well-compensated Boeing henchmen tried to cram a contract extension down the throat of Boeing machinists that would have frozen their pensions, gouged their benefits and greatly limited their pay raises.

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