Feb 24
2025
Subsides amounting to billions of dollars
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Politicians can’t throw enough money at Micron Technology to entice the company to build a microchip factory north of Syracuse. Ken Girardin of the Empire Center for Public Policy took a close look at the deal, and yikes, it is rich enough to make the Buffalo Billion deal that brought Tesla to South Buffalo look like a steal — which it wasn’t unless you’re Elon Musk.
Micron is in line for subsidies worth more than $11 billion. That’s billion, not million.
Among the goodies:
- Up to $5.5 billion in state tax credits.
- Tax abatements, sales and otherwise, of $4.9 billion.
- Property tax abatements that extend for 49 years. Tax abatements, generally awarded by industrial development agencies, typically are good for five to ten years.
(All of this is on top of federal dollars available to microchip manufacturers.)
The Empire Center report goes on to propose smarter ways to promote economic development by making it easier and less costly to do business in New York State.
The Micron deal is an example of the state’s propensity for trophy projects. The strategy has been a failed one, as Charlotte Keith and I documented in this story from 2017. As we noted: “If it were a state, upstate’s job growth would rank fourth-worst in the nation, below, among others, Mississippi.”
Things haven’t gotten any better since.
As David Robinson of The Buffalo News recently reported, job growth last year in Erie and Niagara counties of 0.8 percent lags behind the national average of 1.4 percent. As Robinson wrote, the region “still hasn’t recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic and is facing a growing gap between what’s happening here and across the country, which completed its recovery more than two years ago and has been pulling away ever since.”
The Erie County Democratic Party on Saturday endorsed state Sen. Sean Ryan for mayor in the June 24 primary. He and Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon will compete for the party’s nomination along with an unknown number of other candidates, none of whom can match the aforementioned for their organizational and fundraising capacity.
That’s not to say we won’t have a three- or four-way primary, but candidates including University District Council Member Rasheed Wyatt and former Buffalo fire commissioner Garnell Whitfield Jr., have their work cut out for them.
Geoff Kelly will offer his analysis in the coming week. Stay tuned.
With the Collins Correctional Facility near Gowanda serving as a flashpoint, prison guards across the state are engaged in wildcat strikes to protest working conditions and reforms that, among other things, reigned in the use of solitary confinement. While press coverage has noted that the strikes are illegal — such labor actions by public employees are outlawed in New York — that unlawful behavior has generally been understated. Prison guards, of all people, are breaking the law and state officials are handling them with kid gloves.
The Marshall Project provides a good overview of the situation.
People are already getting fed up with Donald Trump, as evidenced by a growing number of public opinion polls, including those conducted by his people.
Did you catch Steve Bannon’s Heil Hitler salute the other day at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.? The gesture is even making some far-right leaders in Europe uncomfortable. If you’ll recall — and you do — Elon Musk did the same thing the week Trump was inaugurated.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomCongresswoman Claudia Tenney, whose district includes a portion of Western New York, has proposed that Trump’s birthday be made a national holiday. Really?
Not to be undone, USA Hockey and Bill Guerin, general manager of its Four Nations tournament team, ignored Trump’s insulting treatment of Canada by inviting the president to attend Thursday’s title game vs. Canada and taking the president’s phone call to the team on the morning of the game. Suffice to say, Canada had the final word, winning in overtime, prompting talk north of the border not of Canada becoming the 51st state but the United States becoming the 11th province. Well, they do have better beer.
How bad has this winter been? Since the first of the year, it’s snowed all but a couple of days. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with winter.
We can all use a good smile, so I’ll close with a pick-me-up video featuring two Stevies. You know the tune.
