Blowing Buffalo's Billions

Don Esmonde in today's (Sunday December 13, 2105) Buffalo News makes a half demand.

Yes – only half of a demand. He demands that the jobs that are created in the Solar City go to the region's poor and oppressed. And that is a good demand. The plant is being built here in Western NY and so a majority of the jobs need to go to the local poor.

Of course he gives the obligatory sob stories about local poor people that would benefit from working in the complex. People that need the jobs and for very good reasons – family, medical, former military service – you know the routine.

And that is as far as a liberal will go. Capitalism owes these people, so it should give them jobs.

The other demand he needs to make deals with the profits. Who should get the profits?

Let us remember – this is the Buffalo Billion dollars. This comes from tax payer money. We are footing the tax bill on this complex for ten years. Solar City will produce goods just like Ford's stamping plant and GM Power Train. And pay no taxes because it falls under the Buffalo Billion.

So Solar City will pay no state, local, or school taxes for ten years. What will that do to our communities? We will be short on money to fix our streets; take care of our schools and public libraries; pay for police and fire services; pay for snow removal (I know – look outside & show me the snow. It's global weirding. Deal with it.); and a host of other services that taxes provide.

And we are expected to cough up a ton of money to bribe them to build a manufacturing plant here because it will be good for the economy. It will create jobs and build up the working class and the ever disappearing middle class.

Marx called this Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism. All these things need to be done because it is good for the working class. It will not structurally change anything – the capitalist class will still be in charge and will still own the means of production, but the working class and the poor will benefit from it.

I'll believe it when I see it.

We have been giving tax breaks to corporations for decades and the jobs are becoming more and more automated and being shipped overseas. Or just shut down completely.

A good example of this is the yoghurt plant in Batavia that just shut down. It was all the hype two years ago when it opened. Now, 170 workers are out of their jobs, and the owners are walking away with three million dollars ($3,000,000) in taxpayer dollars. And Governor “Status” Cuomo is saying nothing about it. There is the possibility that a Missouri Farmer's Cooperative might buy it and bring back the yoghurt manufacturing. It's all up in the air right now.

So what should we do?

1. Demand a share of the profits. We are putting up the money to pay their taxes, we deserve a share of the profits to pay for the public services (schools, fire, hospitals, etc) that they use.

2. Demand seats on the Board of Directors. And not one token seat. A minimum of three to five. We deserve a voice.

And if Solar City refuses our demands, convert the tax breaks to a loan – like a home equity line of credit. And charge interest.

I keep hearing the capitalists say (in their press and media) that the government needs to get out of the way so that they can do what they claim that they can do.

OK. We can do that.

And we'll take our tax dollars with us.