{"id":2814,"date":"2007-02-27T16:54:04","date_gmt":"2007-02-27T16:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=2814"},"modified":"2007-02-27T16:54:04","modified_gmt":"2007-02-27T16:54:04","slug":"some_good_reaso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=2814","title":{"rendered":"Some Good Reasons for Governments NOT to invest Taxpayer Money in Schemes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/iagblog.blogspot.com\/2007\/02\/aboulafia-for-february.html\">Richard Aboulafia<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Finding Two. If a state plays this game it quickly reaches an absurd level. Just after the LoPresti micro-triumph New Mexico announced a $100 million investment to build&#8230;a spaceport (I really wish I was making this up). This will service Richard Branson&rsquo;s Virgin Galactic and is obviously a necessary subsidy, because Branson, for some reason, has no cash. (See the December 2005 press release at http:\/\/ww1.edd.state.nm.us. Title: Richardson Announces $100 Million Commitment to Build World&rsquo;s First Spaceport. Implicit subtitles: &ldquo;Private Sector Baulks At Risky Project; We&rsquo;re enlisting New Mexico Taxpayers To Provide Generous Help&rdquo; and &ldquo;Hooray! We&rsquo;re Morons!&rdquo;). Today, Kansas and Florida. Tomorrow, Low Earth Orbit. Who can stop New Mexico from operating like an aerospace banana republic? In search of good government I asked my friend Jeff Schwartz what could be done. Jeff is one of the smartest government guys I know, and he works for the Appalachian Regional Commission, which funds development work in states in their jurisdiction. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re on it,&rdquo; he reassured me, referring me to their code (http:\/\/www.arc.gov\/index.do?nodeId=1242#chap8). The ARC prohibits its money from going to &ldquo;(A) Any form of assistance to relocating industries; (B) recruitment activities that place a state in competition with another state or states; and (C) projects that promote unfair competition between businesses within the same immediate service area.&rdquo;<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> Brenda Konkel recently wondered about the City of Madison&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/brendakonkel.blogspot.com\/2007\/02\/we-gave-money-to-this.html\">$700K loan to Tomo Therapy<\/a>.  Generally, I think governments should stay out of this.  We&#8217;re all better off if they spend time simplifying processes, taxes and paperwork.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Aboulafia: Finding Two. If a state plays this game it quickly reaches an absurd level. Just after the LoPresti micro-triumph New Mexico announced a $100 million investment to build&#8230;a spaceport (I really wish I was making this up). This will service Richard Branson&rsquo;s Virgin Galactic and is obviously a necessary subsidy, because Branson, for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}