A man returns from a fishing tournament, and his acquaintances ask him how he did.
“Great! Phenomenal! Spectacular! Amazingly, astoundingly well!” he declares. “I caught three fish,” he says.
Someone standing nearby is familiar with the tournament, and asks a question.
“Weren’t you that one contestant who had help to catch his fish, and besides, wasn’t the winning amount actually twenty fish?”
To which the man replies, “Oh, yeah. there’s that, too.”
Spoken:
CDA Assists D.R. Plastics with Whitewater Expansion and New Jobs
The Whitewater Community Development Authority (CDA) is pleased to announce that D. R. Plastics, a recycler of plastic products located at 814 E. Commercial Avenue in the Whitewater Business Park, is expanding and is the recipient of a $150,000 business loan from the CDA. The CDA loan will be used by D.R. Plastics to acquire new machinery that will allow for the creation and maintenance of eight new jobs at the firm’s Whitewater location. “We are pleased that we are able to expand our Whitewater operations with the financial assistance of the Whitewater Community Development Authority” stated Russ Blakeley, D.R. Plastics President. “This loan has allowed our firm to purchase new machinery and equipment to not only add employees but also to improve our market position. Whitewater is a good place to do business.” The Whitewater Community Development Authority operates a business development low interest loan fund that can assist Whitewater companies meet facility, machinery and equipment needs. Businesses must agree to create and maintain jobs for a certain period of time in order to qualify for these loans.
See, City Manager’s Weekly Report, 1.21.11
Unspoken:
The concern that receives a one-hundred fifty thousand dollar Whitewater Community Development Authority loan is reported — twice — as being connected to a million-dollar Delavan deal. See, Whitewater developer pays $1 million for Delavan Industrial Park properties and Premier Pays $1M for Delavan Industrial.
Here’s a question: Are those stories wrong?
See, also, Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions records on Premier and D.R. Plastics.
A few additional remarks:
Favorable Terms Over the Market?
Why wouldn’t a business looking for a loan avail itself of a lender from the private market? Presumably there’s something preferable about a public loan. One typically goes where one finds easier terms. That’s good for the borrower, but bad for the public, as it means they’re subsidizing a borrower who takes preferable-over-market terms.
Are there any progressives on the Community Development Authority?
It’s not simply a rhetorical question.
For progressives: do you really think that $150,000 for a few jobs from this business is the best expenditure for Whitewater’s development? Could it even be the third, fifth, or tenth best option? No matter how many conditions that you place on those hoped-for jobs, there are a hundred greater needs in Whitewater’s business community, a hundred greater needs for her workers.
Using a similar lending cure for all of Whitewater’s unemployment would cost taxpayers millions to replace the jobs we’ve recently lost.
The CDA has already spent huge sums, and all it got for it was a (soon-to-be) distressed tax incremental district.
Are there any conservatives on the Community Development Authority?
It’s not simply a rhetorical question.
For conservatives: is it all public project after public project, for you? That’s hardly conservatism; it’s a reactionary mercantilism. It does afford this advantage, for the loss of principle: One gets to be a small-town squire, a big fish in a small pond, doling money that others earned, by consequence making oneself important.
Be clear — in private life, relying only on voluntary transactions, many municipal projects would certainly have been rejected, rightly, as foolish.
Situational ethics?
Are all the dodgy stats, jumbled claims, and misleading arguments of a career bureaucrat made legitimate because he declares himself acting for the good of all?
I’m quite sure the answer is, simply, ‘no.’