Good Jobs First Lauds Kansas & Missouri for Progress Towards a Binding Cease-Fire on Taxpayer-Funded Interstate Job Piracy

Politicians Act on Business Leaders' Outrage

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Apr 18, 2016, 10:34 ET

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Good Jobs First today applauded the State of Kansas for its progress towards accepting Missouri's offer of a legally binding cease-fire to end the Kansas City-area problem of so-called "interstate job fraud," or the payment of huge tax breaks for companies to relocate short distances across the region's state line.

On Friday, April 15, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback released a statement and directive memo to his commerce secretary laying out Kansas's counter-offer for Missouri to meet before its legislative session ends. The modifications, if accepted, will make the cease-fire somewhat less rigorous. The biggest concession would be to allow Kansas to apply its most generous subsidy to interstate moves if the company commits to spending $10 million or more for the construction of new building.

However, the overall structure of the deal is wholly unprecedented. Nine counties in the two states would no longer see active job-piracy recruitment and most state-hopping relocations would not qualify for tax-break subsidy deals.

"Thanks to the leadership of Hallmark and 16 other Kansas City-area employers, for the first time in U.S. history, two states are close to entering a legally binding cease-fire on jobs," said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First. "For five years, these 17 companies have been publicly calling the two states out and privately advocating for real action. They are the real heroes behind this news."

Good Jobs First issued a January 2013 study highlighting Kansas City and numerous other "hot spot" metro areas that include two or three states and suffer the same problem (including Memphis, Charlotte, New York, and Boston) as well as states like Texas and Georgia that have aggressively pirated jobs from more distant states.

"Taxpayers in other hot spots will be keen to hear about this common-sense precedent," said LeRoy. "From Albany and Trenton to Nashville and Jackson, it's time states stop wasting money paying companies to merely change people's commuting routes."

Good Jobs First is a non-profit, non-partisan research group promoting accountability in economic development, founded in 1998 and based in Washington DC. LeRoy's 2005 book, The Great American Jobs Scam, details how the "economic war among the states" evolved.

Contact: Greg LeRoy 202-232-1616 x 211 or [email protected]

SOURCE Good Jobs First