City & State NY: Trading Tesla for child care: New York progressives take aim at wasteful ‘economic development’

March 24, 2022 Media

Progressives say they want to take billions in annual tax breaks and subsidies for private businesses like Tesla and divert those funds toward fiscal priorities like child care. State lawmakers say first things first: figuring out the price tag of the state’s sprawling economic development programs.

New York has spent billions of dollars on a dozen deals featured in a report released Wednesday by the left-leaning think tank American Economic Liberties Project. Just 68 jobs came out of $270 million in subsidies given to the clean energy company Plug Power for a facility in Western New York, according to the report. The state is now selling off $200 million in equipment following a $950 million boondoggle involving the Tesla subsidiary SolarCity. “No major films were ever shot at the studio,” the report notes about the Central New York Film Hub built with $15 million in public funds.