Corbett promising $1.7 BILLION in tax breaks to Shell Corp. to build new chemical plant
Our Governor keeps saying that he can't possibly restore any of the $1 BILLION of cuts to public schools because "I don't have the money."
Meanwhile, today the Lt. Governor let slip that Corbett is seeking $1.7 BILLION of state tax credits for the Shell Corp. (Shell made $33 billion in profits last year, by the way).
This is on top of his previously announced deal to Shell that their new plant in southwest PA. would not have to pay any state or local taxes for 15 years.
Corbett at his inaguration actually said he wants to model PA. after Texas. His goal is to have an entire economy driven by fracking and chemical plants. The fracking provides the gas that fuels the Shell Corp. "cracker" plant that then makes chemicals that are used in other chemical plants that then make more chemicals, that then increase demand further for the gas.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/corbett-seeking-1675-billion-tax-break-deal-for-shell-638916/
Excerpts:
"The ethane tax credit will be aimed at attracting more facilities that process gas liquids, said Steve Kratz, a spokesman for the Department of Community and Economic Development. Those companies would be eligible for a credit of 5 cents per gallon of ethane purchased in Pennsylvania, for up to 20 percent of their eligible tax liability.
Companies also would be able to sell those credits to others involved in the ethane supply chain, he said.
"It's all part of a push to develop natural gas uses in the commonwealth," Mr. Kratz said. "If we passively sit and hope the market develops, we could have our natural resources piped out of state."
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Great column on this issue:
http://yinzercation.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/can-shell-educate-our-kids/
Excerpts:
"Talk about hypocrisy. Governor Corbett has been running around the state telling everyone who will listen that Pennsylvania is broke. About our schools staggering under historic budget cuts he says, “we can’t give them money we don’t have.” And he asks, “So if I’m going to propose increasing money for education, who do we take it from?” Turns out he had that backwards. Now the governor is proposing to take money from education and give it to Big Oil.
Yesterday we learned that Governor Corbett intends to give Shell Oil Co. $1.675 BILLION of our taxpayer dollars to do business in Pennsylvania. He proposes handing out $67 million a year for twenty-five years starting in 2017, ensuring that our children and grandchildren will be paying this boondoggle for years to come. This is the man who cut $1 BILLION from our schools, claiming we don’t have money, but now finds he can hand out almost twice that much to his buddies in the fracking business. Does Gov. Corbett have no shame?
The natural gas industry has contributed $1.6 million to the governor’s campaign coffers. From 2009 to 2010, Shell Oil donated more than $300,000 to Gov. Corbett. That’s a pretty big payback: put in a few hundred thousand up front, get over a billion back. If only our kids had that kind of money to donate to political campaigns to buy their own schooling. The cruel irony here is that education is the one place where a little up front investment really does pay off in a big way, for both the individual student and society as a whole.
Now the issue is not so much that the governor sweetened a deal to get a company to build a factory in our state. That’s what governors do all the time. But we’re talking about handing away our children’s future so that Shell will build a petrochemical facility here in Southwest Pennsylvania to process the natural gas that will be extracted – from here in Southwest Pennsylvania. Are we really to believe that Shell needed an extra $1.6 BILLION to be convinced that they ought to process the stuff coming out of the ground in a nearby plant?
Even taxpayers who are not horrified by the fracking process should be livid at what that $1.6 BILLION will actually buy us. That shiny new Shell plant is estimated to employ up to 10,000 people with several hundred full-time employees eventually operating the factory. Sounds nice until you consider that Pennsylvania schools eliminated or left vacant over 14,000 jobs last year alone, with thousands more teachers receiving pink slips this spring.
Seems to me we could have kept our money in our public school system and kept real people employed right now. These are well-educated professionals, key members of our communities, and critical people in the lives of our children. Governor Corbett has slashed these valuable jobs that benefit our students and society now, in favor of potentially creating fewer jobs in the future, at enormous public expense.
That’s not fiscally conservative or protecting Pennsylvania’s best interests. The only one benefiting here appears to be Big Oil. As Governor Corbett continues to de-fund public schools, is he planning to have Shell educate our children?"
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