I don't usually read official pronouncements by Chet Culver, the Governor of Iowa, but a friend tipped me off to one that was very interesting. He's bragging about bringing 1300 jobs to Dubuque. How did he do it? Because he's so darn persuasive? Because, gee whiz, Dubuque is such a wonderful place to live and work? Because IBM wanted to be nice to a bunch of unemployed Hawkeyes? No, Iowa paid for these jobs - and they weren't cheap.
It cost $22 million dollars in incentives to bring 1300 jobs to Dubuque. (The state's own figures.) That's almost $20,000 per job - and that's only what's been negotiated. You know a lot of concessions are coming, too. I doubt very much whether IBM will be paying any local and state taxes there, don't you? It's what IBM calls, "A strong positive public-private partnership."
What kind of jobs are these, anyway? It sounds like a building full of servers and all they need are people to oil and fan them when necessary. (Okay, you don't oil computers and they have electric fans. Whatever. It may just be people watching outlets, so no one trips over the cord, unplugging everything.)
The ultimate irony is that IBM will be using their Dubuque facility for outsourcing. They admit it. The 1300 people that they employ in Iowa will be actively stealing jobs from the rest of the country. So, Governor Culver is bragging about giving away the store to attract customers. Hiring people to export jobs and who, net, will be making the local economy worse. It's the kind of thing that gives colonialism a bad name.
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