Comment Re:Why is this legal in the U.S.? (Score 1) 149
These things don't really apply to a specific company-- they're written like, "a company building a factory of X size employing Y people [doing Z sort of activity]" doesn't have to pay these range of taxes. The conditions are just specific enough that in practice it probably only applies to one company, but gosh darn if their competitor wants to come in and build the exact same thing they'd probably qualify for the breaks, too.
But why is this surprising? Government giving incentives (be they tax breaks or subsidies-- what's the difference, really? Forms of special protection/privilege is another form) to businesses they think will improve their economy is common everywhere, even throughout Europe. Its a question of just what form and how you do it.
Its only a bad thing if the state is acting in bad faith (ie, if the legislators are corrupt and taking bribes-- which they largely are the way elections/lobbying are working currently, admittedly). The state is doing a calculation. Take in a certain amount of reduced revenue usually for a temporary period to create X direct jobs, Y secondary jobs, and Z boost to the economy -- is the overall economic benefit to the state outweighed by the reduced temporary revenue YN?
It benefits everyone in the state for the state's economy to improve, after all.
Also, this has nothing to do with America/USofA. The states are sovereign within the fairly broad limits of the Constitution. Short of a state applying import duties to stuff coming in from other states (which is the right of the Federal Government to regulate via the Interstate Commerce clause) the federal government has very, very, very little it could say about how much or how a state taxes anyone.