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U.S. Government Using Rusty Tools to Watch Development Money |
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One way President-elect Obama can make the federal government more efficient and effective is by adopting practices already used by state and local governments to ensure that companies receiving economic development subsidies are held accountable for creating jobs and protecting the environment.
A report, Uncle Sam’s Rusty Toolkit, released recently by Good Jobs First, together with the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, Green for All, the National Employment Law Project and the Partnership for Working Families, examines five large, commonly used federal programs that together pump more than $8 billion into the economy each year.
The report found that all five of the federal programs are far behind similar state and local programs when it comes to having rules in place to make sure taxpayer money is being spent for what it was intended. Local governments also have created better strategies to use economic development money to address climate change issues, the report says.
Click here to read the full report.
Says Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, who co-authored the report with Phillip Mattera:
Uncle Sam is clearly behind the curve. The federal government can promote better jobs, protect taxpayers, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by simply taking some lessons from states and cities. These well-established safeguards are consistent with President-elect Obama’s stated goal of reforming programs to make them more transparent and cost-effective.
The five federal economic development programs examined in the study are the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program, the Department of Labor’s Workforce Investment Act, the Department of Commerce’s Public Works and Economic Development Program, the IRS’s Industrial Revenue Bonds and the Department of Agriculture’s Business and Industry Guaranteed Loans Program.
In the report’s introduction, LeRoy and Mattera say the core message for all levels of government—especially the federal government—is this:
You have terrific dormant powers within already enacted incentives to positively influence the nation’s economic growth. You should not rush to create—and can likely ill-afford—new tax breaks or other subsidies. Just overhaul your existing economic development toolkit to:
- Promote good jobs that provide pathways out of poverty and strengthen the middle class;
- Protect taxpayers by requiring that subsidies be taken away if a recipient fails to make good on a commitment;
- Boost demand for “green economy” skills and jobs in energy efficiency and conservation by favoring green building practices in both new and existing facilities.
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So far, he is just recycling Clinton administration people and people who got us in this mess in the first place. Change? How can you change a broken system by allowing the culprits to continue their damage?
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