In her March 21 letter to the editor Kathy McGuinness argues the state can't afford corporate handouts right now.
This is a continuation of the Delaware Progressive mentality that Delaware is a business paradise, that businesses will naturally choose the state over others because of some indistinct attraction.
This just isn't true.
The state's current fiscal crisis is clearly the result of the end of an era. But this end has been evident for decades. DuPont has been shrinking since the '70s with the first clear sign being the early retirement packages offered in the early '80s. The automobile plants were dinosaurs that couldn't compete in the new manufacturing age. The recession just kicked their last legs out from underneath of them. But more importantly, for quite some time auto assembly has been a growth business in the Southern states.
Reliance on casinos, escheat and miscellaneous revenues has finally run its course. Other states caught up on casinos and took our business, and the federal courts have found our escheat efforts abusive.
The unfortunate truth is that the last clear effort on the part of the state to attract new business was when they changed the usury laws in the late '70s and turbocharged the credit card industry. And were Elizabeth Warren in charge, that business would be gone too.
And we haven't helped ourselves. Taking positions against fracking (the industry that has changed the world), eschewing right to work and having some of the highest electric power costs in the country has made Delaware a state to avoid. And when you compare our education system to the states on our borders it's not a pretty picture. So answer this question, why come here if other states provide a better environment?
Here is a truth, we are a small, relatively poor state that didn't plan for change. Now we have a problem.
We need to attract business because our residents need jobs, and that means we need to compete with states with deeper coffers who will set the rules. But another truth is that we sit in one of the most profitable business corridors in the world and should be able to use that to our advantage. That we haven't shows we don't know how to play the game.
Call them giveaways if you like, but we need to invest in ourselves because no one is going to hand anything to us.
Lee McCreary
Rehoboth Beach
-
A letter to the editor expresses a reader's opinion and, as such, is not reflective of the editorial opinions of this newspaper.
To submit a letter to the editor for publishing, send an email to newsroom@capegazette.com. Letters must be signed and include a telephone number and address for verification. Please keep letters to 500 words or fewer. We reserve the right to edit for content and length. Letters should be responsive to issues addressed in the Cape Gazette rather than content from other publications or media. Only one letter per author will be published every 30 days. Letters restating information and opinions already offered by the same author will not be used. Letters must focus on issues of general, local concern, not personalities or specific businesses.
