It must be nice. Boeing gets to write off millions in pretax cost on $1 billion in overruns on a tanker it is building for the Air Force, although their revenue was up over $22 billion. No word on what or who caused the boo-boo that caused the overruns but one thing is for sure, taxpayers will foot the bill. Then again, if Boeing is like most huge corporations, it doesn’t pay any corporate income tax anyway. Combine that with billions of dollars in tax breaks that this state gives them, $500 million in the last two years alone and God only knows what the total is since 2003 when our beneficent legislators laid $3.2 billion in tax breaks on the company, then $8.7 billion more in 2013. Plus, this state spent more billions for infrastructure, even freeways, to accommodate them, again paid for by taxpayers, and you would think that someone would question the wisdom of accommodating a company whose apparent destination is to build planes wherever labor is cheapest.
“Is it good for business?” is the only question state leaders ask. Then they trumpet the wisdom of subsidizing the business with the line that says, “look at all the jobs involved.” There is no doubt that Boeing jobs are good jobs, and they create other tax revenue, but so do Starbucks, Amazon, Microsoft and the like. Yes, these companies receive tax breaks as well, but not nearly to the extent that Boeing does. Plus they are headquartered here which is another huge benefit to our area. Of course Boeing was also headquartered here once upon a time, remember?
With the huge amount of tax dollars involved why is it that we have never had an audit by an independent source that tells us whether or not these tax breaks are worth it to this state and its taxpayers? Maybe they would be better off being spent on education. One thing is for sure, no politician alive is going to give us the facts. We have to demand them.
Don Curtis
Stanwood
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