Quote Originally Posted by gopokes88 View Post
They raised taxes and GE threatened to leave. Once again, that's pretty predictable behavior. When states have to compete with each other for companies, having a lower tax rate is attractive. (It is not the only factor, and sometimes isn't even a factor) So maybe a state with 3.5 million people should try to figure out a way to spend less then $20,000,000,000. That's almost 3X the size of Oklahoma's state government with a slightly smaller population.

Oh so instead of attacking the message, attack the messenger. Good work Saul Alinsky.

I never once mentioned capitalism. In a pure capitalistic libertarian utopia, large companies aren't allowed to hire a lobbyist to get congress to rewrite the tax code for them. That's not the world we live in though. And since it's legal, GE is going to do it. None of this behavior is shocking. Companies like to avoid taxes, it's what they do it's who they are. They aren't thugs they are behaving exactly like they're supposed too and always have.

If the government wants more revenue they can raise taxes, close loopholes, and limit deductions.
Companies do like to avoid taxes but there is something else in play…. CEO’s and other high ranking officials like avoiding state income taxes…. It makes their decision to move a lot easier.

I have a sister in law who once worked on economic development in the north Texas area and helped recruit and broker deals to bring large corporations to the Dallas area. XOM was one of her success. But from talking to her in depth it’s pretty clear that we don’t do enough in Oklahoma to be attractive to corporations and their new high wage jobs.

It starts IMHO with the lack of resources that we spend at our universities on educating people in the various sciences. If we don’t invest in our own intellectual capital it just moves elsewhere on its own!