Tuesday, the Buncombe County Commissioners approved allowing Ingles Markets to continue to pursue an award of $100 million in ARRA Recovery Zone bonds. The blighted areas Ingles will be fixing with the capital improvements are its headquarters and a store on Smokey Park Highway. Ingles will be setting up its own warehouse and distribution center. The stimulus will create 160 fulltime jobs plus over thirty construction jobs. The commissioners wanted the dumb journalists out there to understand this was not a subsidy. The only not-a-subsidy in the Build America Bonds is a not-a-payment by the federal government to the bond issuer worth 45% of the interest on the bonds. Once that is done, the not-a-subsidy in no way trickles down. The benefiting business just gets his financing at a lower rate than he could have from a private-sector lender. Not to worry. The federal government is in fine financial shape that is not-a-shape. Furthermore, advocates of centralized control of production by government (known as not-socialists) can find studies to show that businesses that get federal not-assistance to make their bottom line are much more efficient than those trying to satisfy customers with a profit motive.
by Leslee Kulba
Wild West blogger