(Disclaimer: I’m a conservative)

I’m getting sick of the “[insert conservative thinking party] gave tax cuts to big evil corporations and is therefore not your friend”. I think it oversimplifies the issue.

Ignore the fact that it’s a tax cut, because that’s irrelevant. It could be a suitcase of money, it’s just that tax cuts are an easier way to give money from the government to another party. No cheques need to be written.

While I’m sure there are exceptions, the idea behind giving money to a company is to entice them to do something. To open an office where it’s otherwise not economically feasible. To not close down a particular site. To get them to work in some area that furthers a government’s policy.

So from that perspective, “XXX gave money to this big faceless corporation” is only telling half the story. It’s no different than saying “I took a car from the dealership” without saying “and paid for it”.

Secondly, it can be viewed as an investment. Those jobs generate payroll taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes. It gets people off of social assistance. Even if you subscribe to the “evil faceless corporations will evade income taxes” theory, there is always some trickledown.

Sure, some more transparency would be good. Maybe a deal was made that we’ll never hear about. Maybe the deal is documented in some place, but we only hear about the tax cut side of the equation.

I don’t normally get worked up about politics. What gets me going is the use of numbers to tell a story that’s just untrue.