Jackson Free Press

Mississippi legislators are making shortsighted deals that will affect the state's citizens for a long time to come. Political deal making isn't anything new, of course; it's as old as politics itself. These days, the difference seems to be that lawmakers have blinders on when it comes to the luring business to locate in Mississippi. Those blinders are obscuring the welfare of their constituents.

We're not so naive to think that bringing jobs into the state is unimportant—jobs are vital to our economic well-being. What we want lawmakers to understand, however, is that giving tax breaks to corporations are not necessarily the best way to go about securing those jobs.

It's a game almost every state in the union is playing, but big business is holding almost all of the trump cards. Give us what we want—tax subsidies and tax breaks—the companies say, or we'll take our business to a state that will. So lawmakers keep looking for ways to lighten the load on corporations.

A couple of weeks ago, the state Senate passed a bill for an outlet mall already under construction, even coining a new phrase—"cultural retail"—so that the mall could get millions in tourism tax breaks. Just this week, the state House of Representatives passed a bill to give $1 billion more tax breaks to manufacturers, farmers and fisherman. Last year, lawmakers passed a phase-out of inventory taxes.

"If we incentivize one new Nissan, it will more than make up for the whole thing," Rep. Mark Formby, R-Picayune, said.

The question is: Will it? And what will it cost in the long run? These are questions that lawmaker's aren't effectively answering.

The fact is, Mississippi just doesn't have that much more to give. The state already has the second-lowest corporate tax rate in the country of states that levy corporate taxes—5 percent. Its citizens pay the second highest sales tax rate on nearly everything they buy, including on necessities such as food.

In the meantime, programs that could make a huge difference in the quality of life for Mississippi citizens take big hits year after year: public education, health care and aid to families among them.

Last December, The New York Times investigated this trend in its series "The United States of Subsidies." Mississippi spends at least $416 million per year on corporate subsidies, the Times said, with little evidence that taxpayers are getting their money's worth.

"Mayors, governors and legislators, anxious about local jobs, agree to absurd corporate demands for free land and buildings, worker training and lucrative tax breaks, naively believing that these sorts of incentives would bring jobs, stimulate economic development and create an infusion of sustained of cash flow into the state commerce," the Times wrote.

Let's be certain that we're not giving away our future when we give out the corporate subsidies.