All the Buncombe County Commissioners approved giving $1.92 million in public money to BorgWarner. Reporter Jake Frankel tackled the cons appropriately on many fronts. For example BorgWarner is a multinational headquartered in the thriving state of Michigan, and it wants the average local taxpayers to subsidize wages twice as high as their own. Presumably, a number of the county’s unemployed are engineers.
More interesting, Frankel noted the commissioners’ generous gifts in magic money and magic real estate to General Electric were the main reason Commissioner David King was voted out of office. King explained his reasons. “This is about real people.” Funny, I thought it was all about my imaginary friends? See them? They’re all sitting in that chair over there. They have magical powers that enable them to grow the economy in proportion to the number of controls they can dictate. It never happened, and it never will; but it is a legend our government continues to develop for our vibrant and diaper-ripe cultural heritage.
Also, another great thing about economic development incentives is that they’re these weird campaign contributions that go under the radar. They are “free” ads that, if candidates approve them, equate the representatives to heroic entrepreneurs credited with creating jobs and investing in the community. Buncombe County even labels its corporate-welfare line items with tags like, “Job Creation.”
