A Good Year for Goodyear

by Scott Mooneyham - September 18th, 2007 - The Pilot

Lawsuits have already been filed challenging tax breaks and other incentives offered to Dell and Google. They may or may not succeed. But it's hard to see how a constitutional challenge of this latest bill could fail. The bill allows retroactive incentives, a gesture to the Bridgestone-Firestone plant in Wilson. By doing so, it runs afoul of every bit of case law on the subject.

Oh yes! The legislature and the Governor pander to those who want the money doled out, and then look to the courts to keep them from actually giving Goodyear, or at least Bridgestone, the money the law is passed to dole out. I personally doubt that liberal judges will get in the way of giving out our tax dollars since they were passed by a liberal legislature, but you never know. Judges do what they want with little regard for the law. The rule of law has long since become a joke in our courts.

It was at least encouraging that even the big business wing of the Republican Party opposed this particular corporate welfare.