Remember this the next time you pay your ever-growing cable bill. The city, which according to Mayor Anthony Foxx is scheduled for a tax increase this year, is doling out grant money to Time Warner Cable for “creating jobs.” Yes, you read that right. We are paying a cable company to create jobs. Pundithouse.com explains:

Time Warner Cable has its hand out for $696,000, part and parcel of a total city/county grant of $2 million to be doled out over five years. That’s on top of the $3-million business investment grant the city and county forked over in 2003 and the $3-million grant it awarded Time Warner Cable in 2008.

For anyone keeping track at home, that stacks up for a nice pile of $8 million. Somebody, please, remind me again why my cable bill keeps going up.

In return for the largess, city officials say Time Warner Cable has added 950 jobs and invested more than $100 million for business expansion, with the cable titan expected to add another 225 new jobs by 2012.

Remember this when the city of Charlotte starts doing the oh-so-broke shuffle in January in preparation for the inevitable city tax increase later in the year.