N&R editorial on the TIMCO-Honda Aircraft controversy:
“This has shocked everybody,” Dan Lynch said, speaking for, well, just about everybody.
The president of the Greensboro Economic Development Partnership was referring to angry complaints voiced this week by TIMCO Aviation Services chief executive John R. Cawthron about HondaJet.
The Japanese company is a “subsidized foreign entity” cutting its costs by “stealing from TIMCO,” Cawthron wrote in a letter published as an op-ed column Friday. By “stealing,” he meant hiring highly skilled engineers.
…More troublesome is Cawthron’s resentment of the tax breaks and benefits used to land HondaJet. This shouldn’t have shocked anyone. State and local governments play a risky game of favoritism when they offer incentives to lure new companies and inadvertently give them competitive advantages over companies they already have.
That’s an interesting point of view from an editorial board that championed the Skybus deal from start to finish. In fairness, I guess they knew Skybus was a risk; they just kept telling us it was worth the risk.
