How to end the incentives war.

• Author: Gearino, G.D.
• Position: FINEPRINT

There are certain words and phrases which, when spoken out loud, tend to provoke expressions of regret as bad memories cascade. "Leisure suit," for one. Does anyone long for the days of cheaply made, badly tailored polyester ensembles? Or maybe that unhappy echo of the Clinton administration's low point--"genetic matter"--does it for you. In any event, it is my wager that future generations of politicians will experience a similar shudder of revulsion when these two words enter the conversation: "tax incentives."

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Thanks to some recent exemplary reporting by the Winston-Salem Journal, it is now undeniably evident how much and how often North Carolinians are played for chumps when tax giveaways to business are being bartered. With the approval (and sometimes participation) of state officials, local leaders--with ever-increasing frequency--routinely negotiate with corporations over their tax obligations. Fairness was abandoned a long time ago. Nowadays, the relationship between municipal officials and corporate executives resembles nothing so much as that of a seller and buyer haggling prices at a Middle Eastern rug bazaar. Good luck trying that with your income taxes.

The Journal, using the soon-to-be-closed Dell Inc. computer plant as its starting point--a plant the paper described as "the local and statewide poster child for over-the-top incentives hype and unfulfilled job pledges"--analyzed 70 incentives packages handed out by local leaders in recent years. It found that of the 13,000 jobs the recipient companies pledged to create, more than 40% "either were never created or no longer exist." What naive soul thinks the situation is different anywhere else in the state?

If ever there were a slippery slope, the practice of throwing public money at private business in the name of economic development is it. Once it begins, it's hard to stop. Local leaders may start out with large ambitions and noble intent, but in short order they find themselves offering six-figure bribes to companies to move just a few miles. (That's not a theoretical example, by the way. Three years ago, Durham County officials pledged $100,000 to a business as enticement to relocate from neighboring Wake County.) But the problem, of course, is that if everyone else is doing it, any local official also feels compelled to get in the game. No one has the option of pushing away from the table.

In light of that, I don't understand why local and state...