In the rush to get a blog post ready, I often skim the end of an article, after digesting the headline. At the very tail of The Detroit News' piece on the Chevy Volt non-reveal reveal of its maybe-not-so-sexy after all design, I caught this little gem: "In a related matter, GM won tax breaks in Ohio this week to build the Cruze, which will get 45 miles per gallon, at its Lordstown assembly plant." (Nice bit of cheerleading, that hat tip on the Cruze's mpgs.) So, here's the bottom line: "The automaker won a 15-year, 75 percent state tax credit worth $77.7 million. It also won a $4.4 million tax credit to create at least 200 jobs at the plant." "Won." I like that. Anyway, while state tax breaks are de rigeur for all domestic car manufacturers these days, from Ohio-built sedans to Bubba-built Bama Benzs, how is this write-off "a related matter" to the piug-in electric – gas hybrid Volt? Will they look similarly anodyne? Should we expect state AND federal tax breaks for GM's plug-in Hail Mary? You bet we should. But that's the subject of an other story. Well, at least for us.
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Our Guv has been pushing for more jobs in Ohio so I’m not surprised. Of course, he wants to keep more college grads here too. 77.7 mil could have paid off a lot of student loans.
John
Don’t get me even started on the cost of higher education in Ohio! Tuition in the Ohio state universities for in-state students is as high as the tuition in the New York state universities for out-of-state students. Maybe if polititians spent the money on the education rather than on corporate welfare queens, better educated population would have improved economy and brought the end to the recession wihich is in its 8th year here in Ohio.
In the old days we might say that since GM ‘won’, the state must have ‘lost’. But no, now every deal is a win-win. Maybe not every deal I suppose. Some of those booted out of their re-poed houses might call it a win-lose.
Per the GM website, there are 2,756 employees at Lordstown. So that’s just under $30k per worker in wins for GM and wins for Ohio and wins for the workers. Was there another win-win-win when the new, improved Cobalt assigned to Lordstown to replace the Cavalier? Maybe somebody knows.
ttacfan,
Ohio sounds like Rhode Island for education. At URI, you are a number and a dollar sign, definately not a name or person.
Our secondary education system is nothing but another money-grubbing corporation in another form.
Ohio’s bending over for GM is no different than the Southern states with their incredible concessions to the transplants.
Don’t get me even started on the cost of higher education in Ohio! Tuition in the Ohio state universities for in-state students is as high as the tuition in the New York state universities for out-of-state students.
Yes, I have friends with kids getting cheaper OUT of state tuition in West Va and Indiana then they would get IN state in Ohio. Pa-the-tic.
John
Re: education. At least it’s comforting to know other people are getting shafted (misery loves company and all that).
WRT to Ohio’s carrot…this is mere foreshadowing of the taxpayer looting that is to come. Hold on to your wallets!
Were this Nissan or Toyota, they would’ve located the plant in Tennessee or Mississippi, paid the non-unionized locals $12/hr, and cranked out 300k units each year.
But this is GM, in thrall to its UAW overlord. GM needs every tax break it can get. Lord knows, it won’t get any breaks from the UAW.
Did I miss something? According to press reports the Cruze will be sold in Europe in 2009 and in the US in 2011 as a Cobalt replacement. Does that make any sense to anyone? Doesn’t GM need a competent, fuel-efficient small car in the US like RIGHT NOW??
And where is the 1.4L direct injected turbo engine coming from? I hope they’ve actually done some testing on the thing and not just slapped it together.
And how is GM, the company that told our congress that fuel economy simply can’t be improved overnight, suddenly able to go from offering a special edition 36mpg Cobalt to a 40-45mpg Cruze in one year?
Does anything that come out of RenCen make ANY sense?
NETRUN-consider that the Balt typically gets 24-5 mpg overall (vs. 28-30 from the comp) on the street, and the 40-45 mpg is just estimate fluff I think we can expect the Cruze to come close to what the Toyonda is doing today. yippie
limmin-the actual estimates I’ve seen on the transplants wages are far higher $25-35.
Just saying.
Bunter
It’s not obvious that our Democrat Guv is helping his UAW buddies, is it? The wrongness of all of this could fill a long list.