Hey, there! Log in / Register

Wait, there's still a light on at Boston 2024

Neighborhoods: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

Just ask Pittsfield...

up
Voting closed 0

ctpost:

June 1, 2015 - The Democratic budget was essentially wrapped up and ready to go, when veteran Rep. John Frey, R-Ridgefield, announced his weekend conversation with a sword-rattling General Electric executive, who intimated that if planned corporate-tax escalations occurred, the Fairfield-based multi-national would decamp the state.

For this well-timed declaration, Frey, a member of the Republican National Committee, earns the honorary “Dick Belden Rat Patrol Award,” named for the late Republican lawmaker from Shelton, who every year would cull a shopping list of special-interest items nestled in Democratic budget.

By year’s end, a special legislative session adjusted some of the new business taxes and GE Chief Jeff Immelt was still ensconced in Fairfield, where they coalesced after fleeing its former huge manufacturing complex on Bond Street in Bridgeport, where as many as 20,000 employees once made electric outlets, electric fans, toasters, mixers before the profit margins — and jobs — moved overseas.

Meanwhile, the company is still negotiating with federal environmental officials over its decades of pollution in the Housatonic River from Pittsfield, Mass., to the Long Island Sound.

up
Voting closed 0

Shirley says, "You may think GE pollutes" like its up for debate. GE is one of the biggest polluters in the country. This is a fact that has been established for many years.

up
Voting closed 0

It'll be amazing!

...until just when their taxbreaks expire and some other city offers them taxbreaks, so they move.

up
Voting closed 0

Oh, Corey!

up
Voting closed 0

This one in the order of $150M+
Glad GEs coming, but this is all a race to the bottom, causing a feeding frenzy for how states and cities can jump up and down about how many discounts they'll give a company. Of course those discounts are financed by current taxpayers and businesses that don't get the same attention. And remember in Boston, half of the city is tax free land, so taxpayers are already paying more that their share! And take note - GE decided to move after a tax change in CT just over a year ago, a change that was actually undone. Talk about fickle.

up
Voting closed 0

Are we sure this Boston 2024 staffer *isn't* Shirley Leung?

That's as plausible as an intern not realizing it's time to buy the next graft jackpot lottery ticket.

up
Voting closed 0

I'm buying my powerball ticket today, could be the big winner.

up
Voting closed 0

Shirley Leung is self-parodying. Is the Globe completely destroyed yet?

up
Voting closed 0

This sort of feels like we got robbed, but got wallet back missing the $78 in bills instead of being hogtied, having our eyes gouged out and rolled down an embankment somewhere along Route 140 in Freetown and eaten by raccoons with the Olympics.

God bless Shirley's cheerleading. I sure hope Jamie McCourt can survive on that $113 million.

up
Voting closed 0

IMAGE(http://49.media.tumblr.com/6e35fa7242ae6c264da9e2b556744a06/tumblr_n8t21sx9Xp1rfduvxo1_250.gif)

up
Voting closed 0

Wait.

You mean this relocation from CT isn't a prudent corporate cost-cutting measure that's going to have top executives move into extra cubicles at the aerospace plant in Lynn?

up
Voting closed 0

n/t

up
Voting closed 0

Anyone have any details on the 'transportation improvements' Mayor Walsh is including as part of the deal? Will he move a Jersey barrier over another 16" to accomdate greater traffic flows? Is this the real reason behind replacing the Mattapan Trolley - TO serve GE? Monorail from N Station? T-bar from Park?

up
Voting closed 0

All they promised was to continue existing planning to improve traffic in the Seaport area - so no different than the housing "incentive" that turned out to be an existing subsidy that any new Boston resident who meets certain income requirements can get for buying a house.

South Boston Waterfront Sustainable Transportation Plan.

up
Voting closed 0

It's always about the roads...

please do you think they'll do something drastic to the Silver Line to improve it? And I will have pigs flying out of my butt at noontime today in Boston Common.

Also, anyone think GE employees are going to ride the SL? Nope. I bet GE will have private shuttle buses, shuttling people between their offices and North & South Stations.

up
Voting closed 0

The state must entice them to come here and provide jobs for its citizens. So why bicker over tax breaks?

up
Voting closed 0

is about as powerful as the "It's about improving the T!" argument was in pushing for the Olympics.

The jobs that are supposedly coming here are existing positions already filled by people who will be relocated from Fairfield, CT. So while there will probably be some lower-level positions requiring new employees who would be, ostensibly, locals, most of the 600 jobs aren't open to you, me, or anyone else because they are already filled.

Maybe someday down the line a local might be hired for one of those positions, but last I checked most corporate HQs don't fill their home offices by advertising in the local classifieds. They find the best people in the field no matter where they live, and move them to the local HQ.

Believing the thinly veiled lie that this means 600 more jobs for local people is the same as believing the thinly veiled lie that spending $4b on the Olympics means an improved T, when none of that $4b goes to that actual purpose.

up
Voting closed 0

Those 600 jobs may be mostly spoken for already, but what about having 600 new residents for the state to tax? Or more simply, 600 new opportunities to spend their income on local restaurants, clothing retailers, personal "upkeep" services, etc?

You don't think those businesses wouldn't welcome more opportunities to make money?

up
Voting closed 0

But saying (and believing) that this means that 600 of our fine, upstanding citizens who are looking for employment now have a chance at a great job at GE is what I was arguing against. It's the kind of simplistic thinking that doesn't make for good, long-term policy but sells well to non-critically-thinking voters. Kind of like how the Olympics would fix the T.

And I'm sure those 600 people will be spending money, and the company will be paying some level of tax (maybe, but most likely the least it possibly can knowing GE), but I'm not sure that justifies $140m of tax losses spread out over 20 years. Yes, as has been discussed above, those are losses on gains that wouldn't have been directly seen without GE moving here, but it's a race to the bottom that I dislike, especially at a time when so much of our basic needs (MBTA, BPS) are currently underfunded to almost critical extents.

up
Voting closed 0

moving from Fairfield, CT to Boston, MA.

A lot of high-earning New-York corporate types moved to Connecticut because of its low taxes that left them coming out ahead of living in NY. The jobs might move to Massachusetts, but will the executives? Or is there a town in southern New Hampshire that's about to get a lot more upscale corporate?

up
Voting closed 0

CT? Low taxes?

...snicker...

up
Voting closed 0

If you're a well-paid couple working in Manhattan but want a home, your choices are NJ, NY (presumably Westchester County), and CT (presumably Fairfield County). I don't have numbers to back this up, but when a family member was looking to upgrade their housing situation, they were able to afford a much larger place in CT than they had in NJ almost simply because the property taxes were that much lower.

Sucks when they have to fill the gas tank in the car, though.

up
Voting closed 0