I suspect supporting rich television stations is as bad as supporting rich team owners.
If tax breaks are good for business, then provide a low-tax environment that allows businesses to succeed or fail without picking winners, or in this case, supporting someone who already won. If a company decides that political lobbying is a good way to make money, something is wrong with the system! What this comes down to is the 3.6 million people of Connecticut, whose money is taxed both when they get paid and when they buy something, supporting 4000 people at ESPN. They were extremely well paid before these tax breaks took effect.
Mr. Malloy, for his part, is comfortable with the state’s ties to ESPN. In fact, the governor said he would like more of them.
“We want a larger footprint for ESPN in Connecticut rather than a smaller footprint for ESPN in Connecticut because we know that a large footprint is harder to move out,” Mr. Malloy said.
Baloney. Connecticut was a manufacturing powerhouse as late as the 1960s. Plenty of companies had huge footprints, but when other areas of the country offered better business climates, they picked up and moved out. This is a not too recent aerial view of the General Electric plant in Bridgeport, where my dad worked for nearly five decades. In this shot, there are only a few buildings left, but when I was young it extended up Bond Street, and across Boston Avenue down Seaview Avenue. The area is now a pit of crushed brick. Unlike those companies, ESPN’s license forces it to stay in Connecticut. The state should not be concerned with the footprint.
Completely agree, except I think the subsidies (and Connecticut taxpayers) are supporting Disney and its stockholders, and not so much the Connecticut ESPN employees (who of course also pay taxes in Connecticut).
James » But they get higher salaries due to the subsidy.
There’s a name for the system that creates special monopoly privileges for corporations, fueled and fed by central banking that creates all the “money” it wants out of thin air and distributes to its chosen beneficiaries. This whole system of plunder and parasitism is built and sustained by the Universal Commercial Code that has created a whole new system of jurisdiction and through the contracts we’ve all unknowningly entered into, have also become sub corporations, without the common law or our natural rights. We now function under admiralty/maritime law based on contract and public policy. They’ve exchanged our rights for benefits without our even knowing it.
David,
Do they? Do we know that?
I don’t see why they’re salaries would go up. If everyone ESPN was competing with (for labor) also got big tax breaks, then I can see why salaries would rise. But why should ESPN pay their employees more when their profits rise?
I thought the Supreme Court ruled corporations are just people? Why shouldn’t they be taxed the same way? Oh, I forgot, whats good for business is good for the people. Yet business have never had it better, people not so much.
By the way, Happy Birthday to the Fed, just turned 100 Monday. The Fed and the income tax became law in the same year since the commercial banks that own the Fed wanted guaranteed income so the government could pay the interest on the debt that they anticipated would increase substantially under the new system where they created the money. The tax rate was set at 1% for individuals making more than 5000 (about 150,000 in todays dollars). Tax rates and debt took off, and so did interest payments.
It is interesting that tax rates for the rich have declined significantly since the days where the max tax rate was 90% back in the early 60’s (before JFK cut them), and not coincidentally, the debt has taken off and those tax savings have went abroad to set up corporations that can employ people at 10% of US wages. Corporations do not have to pay taxes unless they repatriate their profits back to the US, unlike people.