On Tuesday, the Greensboro News & Record turned to Don Carrington for perspective on economic incentives and the difficulty in keeping track of whether companies actually create and keep the jobs they promise in exchange for tax breaks. Earlier in the week, Paul Chesser offered News & Record readers his take on the all-too-familiar theory that government can create jobs. Among the latest officials to claim job-creation ability are Gov. Mike Easley and President George W. Bush, who recently lauded the jobs created by the pork-laden $286 billion transportation bill. “Watch out when politicians say they are trying to get creative, because they can only do so with other people’s money,” Chesser wrote. Speaking of other people’s money, Joe Coletti’s commentary on runaway state spending in the new budget was also published in the Greensboro daily. His piece focused on the ACC Hall of Champions project in Greensboro, which received $2 million in the budget. Coletti characterized the Hall as an example of the low-priority projects that received state funding.
