Reducing unemployment by 45%

Boeing is here! Yeah!

And it only cost the taxpayer about $225,000 per new job.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad Boeing came to South Carolina just as I’m glad that Amazon.com is building a distribution center here also (just wish we hadn’t thrown all our other retailers under the bus to get Amazon).

But we did give Boeing $900 million in incentives (that we know of) to seal the deal to get the plant that should employee about 4000 workers. Go ahead and check my math. That’s $225,000 per job.

So I’m just wondering. What other jobs could we have bought for that same money and maybe gotten a better deal.

What if the state gave a one-time $10,000 refundable tax credit to any locally-owned small business in South Carolina for every new employee it hired in the next 12 months and kept on the payroll for at least two years? I think there are plenty of businesses out there that would jump all over that deal.

If we capped the total tax credits available at $900 million, we could generate 90,000 new jobs spread throughout the state. Yes, even our rural counties would benefit.

Under this scenario the state’s unemployment rate would drop to 5.4% from 9.8% today, our economy would take off and Govern Haley would be an economic development rock star on the national scene.

But then there wouldn’t be that great ribbon cutting photo op for all the politicians.