Idaho legislators over time have created an estimated $1.6 billion in tax breaks. Now lawmakers are rushing pell-mell to provide industry with another big gift--to a corporation headquartered in Paris, France.
It's the sort of tax break Idaho businesses can only dream about but never receive from hometown lawmakers.
In exchange for investing at least $1 billion over seven years in a huge new uranium enrichment plant in the eastern Idaho desert near the Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho legislators would put a $400 million valuation cap on the French corporation Areva's plant and extend a sales tax exemption on equipment bought for the operation.
Areva promises to create 250 jobs, each paying $70,000 annually, plus spend $2 billion on the plant.
Naturally, Areva is playing Idaho off against other states to ratchet up tax breaks. Areva told Idaho legislators they're competing with Washington state, Ohio, Texas and New Mexico, and unless Idaho comes through . . . .
As lawmakers in Boise breathlessly look for a way to give away millions of dollars in potential revenues to an overseas company, they've totally forgotten about the state's revenue shortfalls and its inability to live up to obligations to its own people. A planned program of raises for teachers, for example, has been junked. Where to find some $200 million in urgent funds for highway work is still a mystery.
Creating tax breaks to help increase profits of a French company while expecting Idahoans to make up the lost revenues is lousy economics and worse civic judgment.
