Asks Carolina Plott Hound as Volvo after North Carolina —and Gboro-Randolph County (mind you still busily assembling proposed megasite) take a back seat to South Carolina in pursuit of the Volvo plant.
For what it’s worth, the N&R’s Doug Clark chimes in:
North Carolina was a contender, but not a finalist, for this prize. The runner-up award, for what it’s worth, went to Georgia, which already is in the car-making business.
So, how did South Carolina prevail? With the “friendliness, work ethic and passion” of its people, Volvo said. “What I believe won Volvo cars in South Carolina was our workforce,” Gov. Nikki Haley boasted.
Really? If so, what’s wrong with our workforce? Nothing. So, what else?
Low taxes? Cheap land? Non-union labor willing to accept lower wages than autoworkers up North?
Us, too! Many North Carolina politicians believe that’s all you need to lure any company. They are proud of our business climate.
But there’s this in South Carolina: Volvo will get an incentives package worth more than $200 million.
It’s a giant, multinational corporation’s dream come true, a grab-bag of delights that includes free land, tax breaks, worker training, a rail line and an interstate highway exchange.
And South Carolina politicians are positively giddy about it. They aren’t too proud to pay.
Republican politicians, like ours. But not like ours.So, who is the vale of humility and who the mountain of conceit now?
I guess when it’s all said and done, the case can be made that the N&R’s criticism of Gov. Pat McCrory and the Republican-led General Assembly is consistent—they’ve bungled landing an automobile plant like they’ve bungled everything else. Still it strikes me odd that the brains down on East Market Street would suddenly trust a bunch of backwards, teacher-hating, homophobic, gun-loving, non-Medicaid-expanding, harshing-on-the-unemployed, Greensboro City Council-hating knotheads with $200 million in taxpayers’ money in an attempt to lure an evil corporation to our state.
