Delusional Greg Abbott Poses for Photo with Billionaire While His Voters Pushed Into Poverty
Greg Abbott is losing touch with reality.
AUSTIN — While local government officials are suffocating working-class Austinites with taxes, they’re rolling out the red carpet for a multibillion-dollar corporation.
On Wednesday, electric vehicle company Tesla announced it would be building a “gigafactory” in southeast Austin and is expected to employ 5,000 people.
He also tweeted about this new “gigafactory,” which is a tricked-up way of saying “a factory.”
Doesn’t look like social distancing to me
Look how happy he is.
Greg Abbott apparently sees nothing cruel about this kind of flex. For months, he has been acting as “Virus Sultan” with complete control over whose business fails and whose business thrives. Small businesses are being murdered and he keeps warning us that if we don’t stop the cold from spreading (something never attempted in human history) he will use his new, god-like powers to destroy your job too.
And how is Abbott doing, financially?
Abbott is doing quite well as his war chest continues to grow in the midst of an ongoing Virus Extinction Campaign. Elon Musk is also doing quite well at a nearly $70B net worth. But the city of Austin wanted give a tiny bit of assistance to Musk anyway. The city is giving the billionaire a little incentive so he can make his luxury vehicles that, soon, only Greg Abbott’s donors will be able to afford.
Specifically, the Travis County commissioners won’t require Tesla to pay full property taxes, unlike the rest of the county’s working citizens. The county agreed to rebate at least 70 percent—and as much as 80 percent—of Tesla’s taxes for at least 10 years, meaning Tesla would save a minimum of $14.7 million over the next decade.
Additionally, the Del Valle school board—the school district where Tesla is locating—also approved changing tax rules to benefit the company. The board capped the potential Tesla factory’s taxable property value, meaning the school district won’t keep taking more money from the company year-over-year—much unlike the rules for normal citizens, where government can raise their property values, and subsequent tax bills, without a total limit.
The school board’s special rules for Tesla will reduce their taxes by nearly $50 million over 10 years.
Now, I’m not opposed to offering businesses incentives to do things, as you run into the situation where whoever does offer the incentives will get all the jobs. But look at some of the tax dollar grants (cash money) the Texas Enterprise Fund has given out:
JPMorgan Chase - $15M
Bank of America - $20M
Facebook - $1.4M
Apple - $21M
Apple (again) - $25M
Cognizant Technology Solutions - $2.1M
Infosys - $3M
Microsoft - $4.8M
Pei Wei (not even that good) - $1.5M
This is free money Abbott is just handing out to massive corporations. Some of the companies on this list exist solely to displace American workers. Can anybody point to a company that promotes “conservative” values?
I understand Elon Musk is much better than some of the more woke organizations out there, probably because he’s from South Africa where the illusion of multiculturalism has been met with reality.
Put aside the virus hysteria for a moment. Why are Republicans giving free tax dollars to corporations that use their money and influence to promote anti-family, anti-American, and other harmful agendas? You should be rewarding only those who will advance what you purport to care about. Would you buy bonds from Planned Parenthood? Would you vote for a Little Kid Touching Pedophile Academy to be built in your town if the Academy promised to fix some potholes? This is the bargain that Republicans have been making for decades and it’s wrong and isn’t working.
A real leader with a vision would set forth an agenda to attract, promote, and reward companies that were explicitly pro-family, anti-communist, pro-America, pro-Christian, anti-feminism, etc.
It’s crazy to me that Republicans haven’t already done this.
