re: #49 Amory Blaine

The fact is that despite all these states pushing subsidies and incentives to woo business, most are really fighting with other states for the same attentions and business wins by extracting ever greater tax breaks that are borne by other taxpayers.

Only recently have some states gotten serious about seeing benefits from jobs-related incentives (making sure that the jobs are actually being created and not simply shifted from other in-state locations, or that economic development goals are achieved within the time period). But there’s a long way to go on that.

Wisconsin isn’t even the worst offender on that front - even though the Wisconsin tax code is absolutely a nightmare to the point that their tax department can’t make heads or tails of some code provisions.

No, Texas takes the cake - both on per capita and total spending grounds. We’re talking about half the state budget spending - or about $19 billion goes to business incentives. That’s about $749 per person.