Asking if states pay too much to land job-generating foreign
investments like auto plants, ABCs World News Tonight found a
critic to sing a sour note about a plant Kia Motors announced it
will open in West Point, Ga.
Correspondent Steve Osunsami began his story detailing
the benefits. The Peach State, Osunsami noted, was giving Kia a plum
$400 million in tax breaks, road work, and cheap land. In return,
the automaker will bring 2,500 jobs here, to a cow pasture in West
Point, Georgia, where the textile mills are mostly closed, and
thousands of residents remain unemployed.
But soon after that, Osunsami slammed on the brakes,
introducing a liberal economist to complain about the states tax
incentives. They ought to be investing their money in things like
education, health care, complained Washington College professor
Robert Lynch, whom Osunsami labeled a public policy researcher who
says states are wasting money competing for auto plants like Kias.
Osunsami failed to find an expert who would disagree
with Lynch, such as
Michael Daniels, a Columbus State University economist who told
the Associated Press that the [Fort] Benning expansion and the Kia
plant would improve the economy of Columbus, Ga., a city near the
West Point Kia plant location that suffered economic decline with
the closing of textile plants.
The ABC correspondent also left out that Lynch is far
from an apolitical academic hes a liberal critic of tax cuts and
a generous donor to Democrats.
Lynch was among more than 400 economists who joined the
liberal
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) lobbying against the 2003 Bush
tax cuts. A review of the Federal Election Commission Web site
reveals that Lynch, a resident of Silver Spring, Md., gave $2,000 to
the John Kerry campaign and $800 to the Democratic National
Committee in 2004, as well as $250 to then-State Sen. Chris Van
Hollens congressional campaign in 2002. In that election, Van
Hollen defeated Congresswoman Connie Morella (R-Md.).
The Business & Media Institute has previously documented the
medias focus on layoffs from
Detroits automakers while downplaying new job openings from
foreign automakers or the role of
labor unions in damaging the profitability of General Motors
(NYSE: GM).
Georgia on ABCs Mind
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