Regarding "Motion challenges Dell incentives," June 24: Creating new jobs and a growing economy is a wonderful, exciting objective. However, being able to take credit for job creation has proven to be too tempting for North Carolina politicians who in the process have created flawed economic policy and possibly unconstitutional public policy. And while they may be comfortable with government increasing its size and power, they know you aren’t. So when they take $300 million of taxpayer money and give it to a multibillion-dollar company, they spin and tell you they are "pro-business" and are offering "pragmatic incentives."
But only the private sector can actually create jobs. In order to truly be "pro-business," our elected officials must first be pro-free market. This means their natural instinct must be toward less regulation and less taxation of business, and away from corporate welfare and subsidies. The less government meddles in the private sector, the better off our economy is.
So when the N.C. General Assembly meddles taking money from some businesses and then hand-picking other businesses to give that money to it is putting government (and its own wisdom and ability to choose correctly) right smack in the middle of a free-market economy.
We have little trust of politicians who reflexively act to involve themselves in the dealings of private industry. And because some leaders in Raleigh have been unable to restrain themselves with the money they collect from taxpayers, we’re asking the courts to double-check those laws and policies against the U.S. and N.C. Constitutions.
Bryan Gossage
Apex
Kent Misegades
Cary
(The writers are plaintiffs in a legal motion filed to halt a number of business subsidies in North Carolina.)
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.
