Ever been in a bidding war? See reason fly out the window when someone else bids up the object of your desire? Well, according to a blog posted yesterday by New Jersey Policy Perspective, that’s what’s going on in New Jersey’s $80 million bid to keep Goya Foods in the state by offering a tax subsidy for a new headquarters/distribution facility in Jersey City. New York, which is also competing for Goya’s affections, wants Goya to build in Suffern, NY instead.
Well, here’s the kicker: NJPP says that if you do the math, the $80 million tax subsidy would create nine new jobs.
That’s because, according to NJPP’s analysis, 66 of the 175 jobs that would be created by the facility are actually existing jobs in Bethpage, NY and 100 more are current Goya contract worker positions in Secaucus.
“The issue policy-wise is whether the state is spending the money wisely,” says NJPP’s president Deborah Howlett.
Howlett’s not just concerned about the potential Goya deal — and New Jersey could still be outbid by the Empire State — but by a spate of subsidies granted by the Economic Development Authority, including $102 million to Panasonic, $350 million to Xanadu and $261 million to Rebel Casino in Atlantic City.
“That’s a tremendous amount of money for the state to invest,” Howlett says, especially when budgets for schools, libraries, police and parks are being cut. “It’s a choice of corporations over people.”
Why not just make Xanadu Goya’s Headquarters. This way we save 80million (and by NJ math, that makes Xanadu a 270 million dollar project) and we also save the embarrassment of having Xanadu go bankrupt for the third time!
If our economy and tax structure were well balanced we wouldn’t need to contemplate such high subsidies.
Oh Boya !!
Goya, good bya.
You can goya own way …….goya own way ……
Apologies to the Fleetwood crowd.
Panasonic created no new jobs — they just got a subsidy for moving from one NJ city to another. The beneficiaries of the Xanadu tax credit are Canadian.
Not only is it terrible policy, which doesn’t generate jobs or ratables, but it’s an appalling case of preference for business interests over
taxpayers’ interests.
What were the cuts to education spending in NJ?
But if Panasonic were to move to another city out of NJ, they would take all of their jobs with them, as would Goya. I don’t know what the math is, but there is a cost to be considered in loss of jobs.