On Wednesday the state of Texas awarded a $7.5-million grant to Lockheed Martin to help the company establish operations in the state for work on the Orion (formerly CEV) program. The award isn’t surprising, since prior to winning the contract last month the company had won incentives from the state in exchange for putting some of the Orion work (including 1,000 jobs) in the Houston area. However, not everyone is supportive of the award: in a column in the Galveston Daily News, Heber Taylor wonders if the state is throwing the money away: “Does a company that just won $7.5 billion in federal contracts really need an additional $7.5 million from the state? Can you really say that is an incentive to a company that is competing for that kind of federal money?” Taylor uses the award a way to make broader criticisms of the state’s spending on economic development projects, which account for about a tenth of the state’s $90-billion budget. “The question, though, is whether a state that is struggling to pay for public schools and that has cut programs to provide health insurance for poor kids should be first in line with funds for companies that obviously are doing well.”
If I give tax money to a needy family, I am a tax and spend liberal who is giving gifts to welfare queens. If I give tax money to L-M, I am a fiscally responsible conservative who is “creating incentives”. Somehow, that don’t seem right.
Wholesale bastardization of language has been part of the US political landscape since the great depression. It’s much more instructive to look at your representatives voting record than to listen to what comes out of their phonation orifices.
“If I give tax money to a needy family, I am a tax and spend liberal who is giving gifts to welfare queens. If I give tax money to L-M, I am a fiscally responsible conservative who is “creating incentives”. Somehow, that don’t seem right.”
Chance,
The difference is very clear. What is the potential return on your dollar in giving tax money to someone who is incapable or unwilling to work? $0.0. What is the potential return on the dollar that Texas will see in giving an incentive to LM to bring CEV work to the State? 1000 jobs x $75,000 salary/job = $75M revenue. Thus Texas has invested $7.5M to attract a yearly revenue stream of $75M. Sounds like a good deal to me.
I’m on the middle on this one. I’m not opposed to government funding to jump-start an industry or to locate it in one’s district (though you do have to ask where this competition ends). However, “welfare queens” aside, our nation’s increasing rejection of the ideal of public education and equal opportunity for all (however poor you may be) is a loss we will pay for far into the future. We give teachers and schools ever smaller amounts of funding relative to the numbers of students and the size of the economy, than we blame the problems with our public education system on teachers, and use that as an excuse to subsidize private and religious schools. Following the “tax revolt,” California’s public educational system went from the best in the nation to next to the worst — and we still blame this on teachers.
Here in San Francisco the loss is stark. The old Victorian public schools are beautiful, achitectually grand affairs that graphically demonstrate the high priority given to education in the 19th Century, while modern school buildings often don’t even successfully keep out the rain. And this relatively wealthy city is far better off than most inner cities, since local funding means that rich suburbanites get the good education while inner city poor are ignored.
What does this have to do with spaceflight? By under funding the ability of the poor to get an education, we guarantee that there will always be a large underclass that are either left to starve on the streets or need expensive feeding, while also severely limiting our future ability as a nation to invest in future oriented activities like spaceflight.
As the (conservative) Economist put it, by spending billions on the elderly while starving public education, we have created a vast transfer of wealth from the (often poor) young to the (often wealthy) old, which is the opposite of what you want to do if your nation is to have a future.
> If I give tax money to a needy family, I am a tax and spend liberal who
> is giving gifts to welfare queens. If I give tax money to L-M, I am a
> fiscally responsible conservative who is “creating incentives”.
> Somehow, that don’t seem right.
That’s because it isn’t right. Those are rinos, not fiscal conservatives. (Remember Mark Whittington bitching about the fiscal conservatives because they want to limit NASA’s budget?)
Don’t forget that the first iteration of Apollo (without steroids) was initiated by John F. Kennedy and the decision to put JSC in Houston came from LBJ. NASA remains a liberal agency to this day. Their union endorsed Kerry in the last election.
> The difference is very clear. What is the potential return on your dollar
> in giving tax money to someone who is incapable or unwilling to work?
> $0.0. What is the potential return on the dollar that Texas will see in
> giving an incentive to LM to bring CEV work to the State? 1000 jobs x $75,000
> salary/job = $75M revenue.
Ah, no, Dennis. State revenues will not be $75 million because Texas does not have a 100% income tax. (In fact, it has no personal income tax.)
The state will get some revenues back through sales taxes — a few percent of $75 million, depending on how much is spent on taxable items — but those revenues would be the same no matter who you give the $75 million to.
> What is the potential return on your dollar in giving tax money to someone
> who is incapable or unwilling to work? $0.0.
Again, no. If you give the same $75 million to disabled veterans, they will spend it and pay sales taxes just like NASA employees. In fact, disabled vets will probably pay slightly more in sales taxes because, having lower incomes, they tend to spend more and save less.
In either case, the amount of revenue that comes back is a small percentage of what the state spends.
There are also secondary effects. Bringing another 1000 NASA employees to Texas means the state has to spend more money to provide them with public education, roads, health care, and other social service benefits. Since most of them will be liberal Yankees, they immediately start clamoring for increased state spending for all those things — and a pony, too.
> Sounds like a good deal to me.
Great. Then, let Alabama do it instead of asking Texas. While you’re at it, Alabama can fund the rest of VSE, too.
In their own ways most of the folks here are right, but it has to be put in the context of complex human activities.
Because the company will have facilities here it will either inject capital into the state through the outright purchase of, or the lease of those facilities. (Likely result – LM buys then sale/leasebacks) Those facilities will also need to be serviced.
LM will need to purchase utility services from state providers (we have our own complete grid).
LM will need to purchase business supplies and services.
LM employees will purchase houses, buy groceries, go to churches and use the local entertainment facilities.
The general hi-techness of the state will increase.
Texas will have an even stronger foothold in the climb to space industry competitiveness.
If the citizens have chosen this policy of encouraging hi-tech industries to locate here in the state then the state shouldn’t be begrudged when it exercises its mandate.
Do I think the state should have done this? Not necessarily in the way in which it was done. If it were really necessary to pay them to come here (which is dumbfounding given the sheer greatness of Texas. Who wouldn’t want to be here?), I would have extracted certain educational and local services concessions, such as providing funding for the school district and having x number of high school interns each year at their facilities. Also, I would ensure that certain thresholds are met or the terms of the contract switch to default mode where the concessions are paid back by the company. We’re not here to get snookered, after all. (I’m a Libertarian, and I vote that way, so I don’t want to hear any left-wing/right-wing nonsense. I’m from the thinking-wing)
And Ed’s right about the yankees. They always come down here and want us to start a state income tax. Uh-uh. Next they’d want us to have our legislature meet -every- year. We just can’t start down that road…
Ken: which is dumbfounding given the sheer greatness of Texas. Who wouldn’t want to be here?
Well, I for one, I have been in few places in the United States I disliked more than Houston. But, each to their own. Regarding Yankees, you and Ed have taken Yankee money (Johnson’s use of Apollo to help industrialize the South). You can’t expect to accept a handout without a bit of Yankee culture to go with it. . . .
More seriously, I thought one of the very best parts of Stephen Baxter’s excellent alternate history where we did Mars instead of the Shuttle, “Voyage” was the cultural clash experienced by a Berkeley professor astronaut sent to Houston for training.
— Donald
> you and Ed have taken Yankee money (Johnson’s use of Apollo to help industrialize the South).
Nope, never took any of that Apollo dope. I wasn’t part of a land scheme to pawn some useless grazing land off on the Federals, either. That was your party, Donald.
> Because the company will have facilities here it will either inject capital
> into the state through the outright purchase of, or the lease of those facilities.
Doubtful. Lockheed already has plenty of facilities in the DFW area.
> LM employees will purchase houses, buy groceries, go to churches
> and use the local entertainment facilities.
So would anyone receiving a government handout. There’s no “clear difference” between NASA contractors and anyone else.
Besides, as Jeff would say, it’s not a zero-sum game: The Rinos didn’t take money away from other social programs to pay for NASA’s big budget increase. They increased spending for everything, across the board.
> Texas will have an even stronger foothold in the climb to space industry competitiveness.
You’re kidding, right? Building Apollo replicas gives the state a stronger foothold in space competitiveness?
Who are they competing with? The Conferederate Air Force?
Dagnabit!
Ed Wright has me all figured out.