1/ A few thoughts on the Intel deal in Ohio:
The big question everyone is asking and should be asking is this: How much did Ohio offer up in tax incentives and other money to land such a big project? The short answer is we don't know. And that's by design.
The big question everyone is asking and should be asking is this: How much did Ohio offer up in tax incentives and other money to land such a big project? The short answer is we don't know. And that's by design.
2/ As citizens and journalists in Ohio, we don't get to know until the deals are finished. Or maybe not even then. That's because public officials have worked for years to shield such deals from scrutiny by the press and public.
3/ When former Governor John Kasich was elected in 2010, he privatized the state's economic development agency, creating JobsOhio. It was the first bill Kasich signed into law.
4/ JobsOhio became a quasi-public agency entirely shielded from public scrutiny. Kasich arranged for the state to sell to the agency its liquor monopoly, which dated to the end of Prohibition.
5/ The revenues from the state's liquor monopoly had been contributing $250 million annually to state coffers. Instead, these dollars would fund JobsOhio and the six-figure salaries of its executives. And they would no longer technically be "public dollars."
6/ Or so the argument went: If the agency were directly funded with public money, it would be subject to public records laws. And that's why you don't know how much Ohio gave up to land Intel yet.
7/ Maybe the Intel deal is a good one. But the public doesn't have the necessary information required to make that assessment. The public deserves to know.
8/ There was a time when public officials had to be open about what they were offering to companies to lure them. As the Ohio/Intel deal illustrates, these deals are finished and signed long before the public knows enough. That's by design and it's undemocratic.
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