Latest Enterprise Zone commercial from the City:
Notice it makes no mention that EZ beneficiaries are supposed to be creating jobs…no the chief selling point here is that local businesses can “virtually eliminate [their] business state income tax.”
You know what? That’s money out of our collective pockets, money these businesses would be paying to we the people. Money that could go to our schools, roads or the City itself, which is having its own fiscal challenges lately.
Instead, we’re giving them big tax breaks, and for what? What are we getting out of it?
Well we know Walmart is taking advantage of it. So are scores of other big box retailers, restaurants and auto dealers.
Are they creating jobs that help our local economy? Where is the cost/benefit analysis that shows this is a worthwhile program for our valley and not just a handout to the local business class? What are we really getting out of this? I want specifics, not announcements that it has created “hundreds of jobs.” What kind of jobs?
We simply don’t know. The testimonials posted on the City’s EZ website from business owners just say the program has saved them money. The only evidence we do have comes from a non-partisan Sacramento think tank, and it says EZ programs are negligible when it comes to creating jobs.
And people wonder why I’m skeptical of the $200,000 we handed over to local business interests to create the Santa Clarita Economic Development Corporation and they wonder why I laugh when we hear that the local Chamber is hiring a lobbyist who will fight EZ program changes that would require employers to provide health care for their employees.
For that matter, where’s David Gauny and TimBen Boydston demanding proper accountability for our city programs and tax dollars?
But by all means, if you’re a local business owner, they’re throwing another breakfast for you next week, so have at it, on our dime.
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