
U.S. Steel wins tax breaks from one of America's poorest cities - howard941
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-steel-gary-insight/u-s-steel-wins-tax-breaks-from-one-of-americas-poorest-cities-idUSKCN1PX17D
======
glial
>> U.S. Steel's 2018 profits shot up to $1.12 billion, from $387 million the
previous year.

>> the city and state offered the firm a $47 million tax break package.

How is this different than the city being held hostage by the organization in
question? There was a recent article about ExxonMobile being denied tax breaks
by a small town in Louisiana[1], which was unusual enough to set off corporate
alarm bells and resulted in much civic hand-wringing. I understand that cities
and states want to be attractive places to do business. However, the ability
for locations to offer company-specific tax breaks allows companies to pit
cities against each other ( _cough_ Amazon) and avoid paying to support local
services like schools, parks, police, etc.

Would we not be better off as a society if business-specific tax breaks were
not an option? Wouldn't that 'level the playing field'? Wouldn't it decrease
the incentive for local governments to gamble the city's financial future,
placing bets on the whims of corporate boards? Can someone tell me what I'm
missing?

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/us/louisiana-itep-
exxon-m...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/us/louisiana-itep-exxon-
mobil.html)

~~~
rayiner
> Would we not be better off as a society if business-specific tax breaks were
> not an option? Wouldn't that 'level the playing field'? Wouldn't it decrease
> the incentive for local governments to gamble the city's financial future,
> placing bets on the whims of corporate boards? Can someone tell me what I'm
> missing?

The race to the bottom drives business taxes to zero, but it's not clear to me
that's undesirable. Businesses are productive entities and create jobs. It's
not clear to me that it's desirable to tax that. It makes more sense to simply
raise taxes on the individuals who actually use those local services.

~~~
perl4ever
"Businesses are productive entities and create jobs."

I'm not sure of the meaning of that statement. Anybody can do something,
perhaps dig a ditch and fill it in again, and file appropriate paperwork to be
recognized as a company by the state. If that activity does not create more
value for society than it destroys, society ought not to encourage it, even
though it creates one or more "jobs".

~~~
whatshisface
Companies are more aligned towards creating value than Hole Inc because they
have a profit motive, and _presumably_ can only make money from voluntary
transactions. The "creating jobs" thing makes sense when it's taken implicitly
that the market will demand that any jobs you create will be worth something
to someone.

Also, a hole-based stimulus package might actually help the town's economy,
just like a big government project to paint murals on every wall would. So in
a sense, towns are agnostic about the big picture. This shows the mindset of
the politicians who are trying to create jobs: the value provided to them is
the income that the employees make, which they can tax the spending of.

You don't talk about creating jobs if you are a customer that will be buying
the products of the big plant. In fact, creating jobs is a negative (an
expense) for every organization involved except for the local government. It
is the customers of US steel that care about the importance of whatever it is
that the jobs are doing, and the local government that cares about the
existence of the jobs.

------
electricslpnsld
U.S. Steel is such a horrible company. Their coke plant in Clairton, PA (the
setting of Deer Hunter if you haven't seen it, great movie...) continues to
pump out pollution in violation of governmental environmental standards,
including massive amounts of SO2, contributing to an astronomical asthma rate
among children in Allegheny County (home of Pittsburgh). Unfortunately the
city of Pittsburgh, the county, and Pennsylvania seem completely unwilling to
take any action.

~~~
gotodengo
Western PA in general seems to be slipping back into (as I've been told it was
like) the pollution of the 70's.

Even without the recent coke plant fire, Pittsburgh had a record worst year
(since they've cleaned up in the past few decades at least) for days of high
airborne particulates, warnings for those with asthma, etc.

The gas wells in the south west of the state used to pool their run off/waste
water (which contains at least benzene IIRC) and wait for it to evaporate off.
Those pools occasionally leaked though, and the pictures of dead fish in
nearby ponds/streams looked bad. So now they mist the water and spray it into
the air to be dispersed over a larger area. Last time I was home I saw my
neighbor mowing his yard with a white surgical mask on.

Tap water has turned cloudy at best and isn't trusted by anyone, so everybody
buys bottled water, which just increases pollution again.

Last I read though, Bayer was getting out of Pittsburgh, and BNYM was doing a
bunch of layoffs. As much as they should, I can't imagine the local govts
bringing down the hammer anytime soon. In leiu of tax breaks, Appalachia has a
long history of selling the environment and locals health in exchange for
business.

~~~
autokad
> "Western PA in general seems to be slipping back into (as I've been told it
> was like) the pollution of the 70's."

that is incorrect. air quality levels have improved significantly, just at a
slower rate than the rest of the nation.

[https://www.post-
gazette.com/news/environment/2018/04/18/Pit...](https://www.post-
gazette.com/news/environment/2018/04/18/Pittsburgh-s-air-quality-among-worst-
in-nation-study-lung-association/stories/201804180109)

> "Last time I was home I saw my neighbor mowing his yard with a white
> surgical mask on."

Maybe they have hey fever.

I grew up in the Pittsburgh area, I enjoyed breathing the air a lot more than
in Philadelphia. I recently moved to Seattle, and I recently experienced worse
air quality than any other place I have been with its 'summer smoke' days.
Another thing mentioning about those bad 'air quality days' in the Pittsburgh
area, they count pollen, and I am sure the farms in the region add to the air
woes. In any event, jobs/work or the lack there of is a major concern for the
area.

~~~
gotodengo
Your link is in reference to the state of the air reports. Which seem to
collect data in 3 year periods. Looking at the most current report vs. the
previous one Pittsburgh is (slightly) worse for particulates, going from 12.6
ug/m^3 to 12.8. The city also fell from 17th worst to 10th worst for fine
particles[1].

Between the reports, it was the only county in PA to see an increase in
unhealthy days for fine particle pollution[1]

25% of days in 2019 have been unsafe for people with asthma in the city[2].
Obviously the coke fire is a large part of that. Which by the accounts I've
read at the least took their sweet time warning the public about the scale and
type of pollutants that were released.

Obviously the city is not yet at 1970's level. I've spent some time on the
rivers, and indicator species once lost have returned and are still there.

Your own link however contains the quote(from before the coke plant fire)

"Of all counties in the state, only Allegheny experienced an increase in the
frequency of unhealthy days for particulate pollution, 6 to 8.5 — the highest
in any county east of Utah."

\--

For context with the neighbor, this is while the well ~200 yards from his
house was spraying mist. From the last time I was at my parents' house it
seemed to do that for about 10 minutes every 4 hours or so. It makes the air
smell like old cabbage and is hard to schedule around. The whole street has
shared their concerns with one another.

I love the place, and farms certainly add their own pollutants to the air and
water, but the status of the air in Pittsburgh is pretty canonically "not
good".

\--

[https://www.nextpittsburgh.com/latest-news/american-lung-
ass...](https://www.nextpittsburgh.com/latest-news/american-lung-associations-
new-air-quality-report-points-areas-pittsburgh-must-improve/)

[https://www.ehn.org/pittsburgh-warned-stay-indoors-
pollution...](https://www.ehn.org/pittsburgh-warned-stay-indoors-
pollution-2627997216.html)

------
Johnny555
_The state of Indiana’s investment of $10 million in tax credits, along with
$2 million in worker training grants, comes with the condition that U.S. Steel
retain at least 3,875 jobs at Gary Works. But a state spokesperson declined
comment on whether the company could still collect part of the incentives if
the number of jobs falls below that threshold._

Why is a secret deal paid using public funds even legal? No one should have to
rely on what a "state spokesman" says, the terms of the deal should be public
so the public knows what they are paying for.

------
akavi
I feel like we need an amendment for the inverse of bills of attainders: Just
like it's unconstitutional to pass laws that solely hurt a single
individual/company, it should be illegal to pass laws solely to benefit a
single individual/company.

------
Bucephalus355
Amazon does not deserve any breaks.

US Steel employs Unionized blue collar workers with a pretty decent entry
level training program. The other steel companies are not unionized at all
(looking at you AK Steel). While they don’t deserve these breaks either, this
is night and day from Amazon.

------
mmsikora
I worked in the facility in question for a summer and it motivated me to study
hard and become a developer. The place is Mordor and stands between the city
of Gary and the prime lakefront property.

------
driverdan
> Steel industry employment nationwide increased by 1,000 jobs to 83,400...

That is tiny. Why do governments keep propping up small industries like this
and coal mining?

~~~
therealforsen
because steel is necessary for war, and it's dangerous to rely on foreign
nations to provide that

~~~
wespiser_2018
according to the Mattis, us military interests only account for about 3% of
steel produced in the US, so I think we are pretty far from needing foreign
nations to build ships, at least for the steel.

~~~
DeonPenny
3% while not in a major war between superpowers

~~~
wespiser_2018
I'm not sure we'll need steel after a major war between super powers, we
haven't had one in 70 years. Even if we need more steel, we can always ramp up
production, or import steel, like we did in Iraq to up armor the HMMVW. We are
making as much steel today as we did at the end of WW2, and there's no doubt
we'll need less physical hardware in any future conflict. More domestic steel
production now, doesn't appear to affect national security.

------
Pxtl
They bought up Stelco here in Hamilton hollowed it out and pilfered the client
list, then dumped it.

Sounds like they're being every bit as ethical in the USA.

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ausbah
what a common agenda - claim to bring back jobs to an area if tax breaks are
given, receive massive tax breaks, don't bring back jobs - only automation

