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New Markets Tax Credit Program To Be Distributed to MRRA- High Paid Hotbed of Corporate Welfare !

TWEET THIS !    http://goo.gl/xY1xjz 




Published on Dec 4, 2013Uses New Markets Tax Credits to develop vacant property at Brunswick Landing, a former Naval Air Station managed by the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority (MRRA), into 79,000 square feet of built-to-suit office and clean manufacturing space for Mölnlycke Health Care. Creates up to 85 new jobs, 90% of which will be hired locally.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVSPFUppE90&feature=youtu.be

My Online Comment:
Mackenzie Andersen 1 second agoIn 2009 the Pine Tree Zone Tax Incentives were fundamently transformed from their original intent to be used for low income high unemployment areas. I did not realize until Representative Beth O;Conner sponsored a bill in 2015 to include the Town of Berwick as a speical zone qualified to recieve Pine Tree Zone corporate welfare benefits that the 2009 transformation did not "expand Pine Tree Zone tax incentives state wide" but had in fact limited Pine Tree Zone corporate welfare benefits to specific areas with a special mention for military development zones- which are the two state governed towns of MRRA and Lorring- billed as regional development authorities but serving regions composed of single municipal corporations in which there is no muncipal government, involving multiple violations of the Maine constitution,
Since the qualifications for Pine Tree Zone welfare is that the corporation must provide jobs paying higher than average "FOR THE AREA" - that means that as a plethora of corporate welfare programs created by Maine State Inc are concentrated in singular areas such as the city-states of MRRA and Lorring each new corporate welfare beneficiary will create jobs that pay higher than average FOR THE AREA so that the rate of pay in those designated areas will keep going up and up and up. To make matters worse the Pine Tree Zone Corporate welfare program includes up to 100 % corporate and personal income tax exemption and an up to 80% payroll tax exemption to be transfered as a tax burden on the part of the economy that is not privy to corporate welfare in Maine. No wonder the gulf between the top and the bottom in Maine economy is increasing !
It is no suprise to hear that the latest refundable tax credit program created by our legislature will be distributed at the state governed municpality of MRRA where many other corporate welfare programs are being distributed. But it is hard to understand how the legislature and administration manages to spin these areas as low income areas for which the New Markets Tax Credit program is intended !
The town of MRRA is not a low income high unemployment area. In 2013 the tax payer funded lobbyist for the DECD corporation, Mr Douglas Ray, bragged at a congressional hearing:
Of the 390 or so businesses participating in the Pine Tree Development Zone Program a vast majority, more than 300 are manufacturers, that's roughly 80%. These businesses have pledged almost a billion dollars in investment and anticipated payroll of nearly $850 million and 74 hundred jobsMr Douglas Ray testimony before THE JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON LABOR, COMMERCE, RESEARCH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT March 19 2013
an average pay per year of $114864.00 !!! 
Factor in that each new PTZ corporate welfare recipient must create jobs that pay higher than average for the area ! 

Mr Douglas Ray goes by the title of “legislative liaison” for the Department of Economic and Community Development and is a mainstay in congressional testimonies.. In 2013 a bill came up, H.P. 448specifically targeting Maine based manufacturing, agricultural and creative industries, Mr Ray testified as neither for nor against it.

H.P. 448  House of Representatives, February 26, 2013 Resolve, Requiring the Department of Economic and CommunityDevelopment To Develop Incentives for Industries in the State ToIncrease Employment of Maine Residents

SUMMARYThis bill requires the Department of Economic and Community Development to work with the Department of Labor, the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, Bureau of Revenue Services and regional planning commissions to develop incentives for manufacturing, agricultural and creative industries in the State to increase their employment of Maine residents. The Department of Economic and Community Development is directed to submit a report of its findings, including any necessary implementing legislation, to the Joint Standing Committee on Labor, Commerce, Research and Economic Development by December 4, 2013. (emphasis mine)

Mr Ray’s testimony re H.P. 448  did not specifically address the content of the bill, which focuses on jobs - including manufacturing jobs in Maine. The testimony could have just as suitably been presented in any situation in which Mr Ray promotes the DECD corporation.  But when it came to testifying for the “Expanded and Improved Seed (REFUNDABLE) Capital Tax Credit” Mr Ray  testified “strongly in favor”. The difference is clear. Global capitalists do not manufacture in Maine- they manufacture in low cost global labor market places.
1987 Maine Department of Economic & Community Development:   Governor John R. McKernan, Jr.

§13051. Legislative findings

The Legislature finds that the State's economy is linked to the national and international economies. Economic changes and disruptions around the world and in the nation have a significantly impact upon the State's economy. The rise of 3rd-world and 4th-world countries as manufacturers of commodities for mass markets and the gradual evolution of the national economy to a technological, informational, specialty product-based economy have significantly ...readmore

The intent establishing the DECD corporation speaks of globalism. Investment money that the state delivers in Maine goes to those developing prototypes to be manufactured in the least expensive global labor market.- That is what “community” means to the global capitalist..

 Mr Ray makes claims about manufacturing jobs created in Maine- which when one does the math works out to an average pay per year of $114864.00 - Perhaps some kinds of industrial manufacturing can be done in the United States at that rate of pay but for other types of products, the competition in the global labor market hovers at around a dollar a day-and if Mr Ray’s facts are correct- and factoring in that he stated that they are Pine Tree Zone manufacturing jobs- that means that the Maine taxpayer has to cover up to 80% of payroll tax on 7400 jobs with an average pay of $114864.00 annually - that’s a big chunk of capital coming out of the pockets of the  taxpaying sector of the economy. I would call that a conflict of interest.

Maine Pine Tree Zone Information
Introduced by Governor John E. Baldacci in 2003, Maine's Pine Tree Zone Program is designed to spur economic development and job creation in targeted regions of the state where unemployment is relatively high and wages are relatively low.  
 Pine Tree Zones may be layered with other incentives:Municipal TIFsFederal New Markets Tax Credit* Community Development Block Grants* Maine Technology Institute seed grants* Maine Seed Capital Tax Credit * Maine Small Enterprise Growth Fund
           http://www.longchampsbusinesspark.com/clients.htm


That money coming out of general taxpayer's pockets could be used to revitalize a middle class. The middle class is the class that separates a free society within a free enterprise system from a feudalistic society with a large gulf between the haves and the have nots.

The Pine Tree Zone Tax incentives when originally created were intended for areas of Maine with high unemplyment and low income. It was transformed in 2009 with a special emphasis on benefitting Maine's city states ( former military development zones) where the highest paid jobs are being installed using a complex corporate welfare system in which the costs are transferred to the part of the economy excluded from benefits- otherwise known as taxation without representation. In practice the Pine Tree Zone Tax credits and now the New Markets Refundable tax credits are being used to shift capital from the bottom half of  the economy to the upper stratsopher of the economy and from a free enterprise system to a new breed of goverment which distributes socialist rations to the bottom half of the economy and capital for economic profits to the upper half of the economy.

In 2013 in an embrace of this new poliitcal philosophy the Maine State legislature passed a bill affirming Maines friendship with the Communist Republic of China citing "shared values"

This is the way the system works in China:

"Over the ensuing decades, particularly in the 1990s when massive investment poured into China, the families of CCP bureaucrats utilised political power and links with foreign capital to transform themselves into a new property-owning capitalist elite. CCP-connected entrepreneurs, executives, outsourcing contractors, import and export traders and professionals have emerged as the junior partners of major transnational corporations in ruthlessly exploiting the working class."
World Socialst Website -Chinese regime amends constitution to protect private ownership- 2004 

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