Good Jobs First – Brown War Watch

In Four Years, Taxpayers Spent $18-Million On Medicaid Assistance For Workers at Rhode Island Companies Receiving Millions in Economic Development Tax ‘Incentives’

Between the state’s 2014 and 2017 fiscal years, Rhode Island allocated $18-million through its Medicaid-funded Rite Care and Rite Share medical assistance programs to employees working at companies that simultaneously received more than $114-million in state subsidies designed to spur job growth and workforce development.

CVS Health topped the list for total Rite Care and Rite Share expenses, as well as total tax incentives received. According to Rhode Island Unified Economic Development Reports, CVS employees and their dependents utilized $5.7-million in medical assistance during the four-year period in which the Woonsocket-based company also received $63-million in tax benefits.

Since 2008, CVS has received more state subsidies than any other business: $175-million of the nearly $350-million disclosed in the Division of Taxation’s annual reports on tax credits and incentives.

The second and third highest totals for Medicaid-funded benefits were at jewelry maker Tiffany & Company, and submarine builder Electric Boat, with employees and their dependents receiving $4.5-million and $3-million in government-funded health insurance benefits, respectively. Continue reading In Four Years, Taxpayers Spent $18-Million On Medicaid Assistance For Workers at Rhode Island Companies Receiving Millions in Economic Development Tax ‘Incentives’

The Myth of General Dynamics-Electric Boat and Its ‘Middle Class Jobs’

The author Joan Didion famously wrote, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

In Rhode Island and Connecticut, we tell ourselves myths about Electric Boat in order to justify building war machines.

There are the obvious myths: that a fleet of nuclear-armed submarines costing upwards of $104-billion will be a force for peace in the world; that executives at parent company General Dynamics gobbling up millions of dollars in compensation each year on the taxpayer dime are “patriotic”; and that some other community will build these weapons systems anyway if Southern New England doesn’t—so why shouldn’t we?

The fourth myth, which might be the most rich, is that the top brass at General Dynamics-Electric Boat actually care about our community, that they’re people committed to providing us with “good middle class jobs,” the kind of “blue collar” work that still provides an income you can raise a family on. Continue reading The Myth of General Dynamics-Electric Boat and Its ‘Middle Class Jobs’

In Maine, a History of Bold Claims and Vague Commitments From General Dynamics

When he gave his keynote address before the Chamber of Commerce of the Greater Portland Region in September 1997, then General Dynamics CEO Nicholas D. Chabraja had reason to celebrate.

It’d been two years since his company, annually among the nation’s largest defense contractors, had acquired local shipyard Bath Iron Works, and not long since it secured a $194-million megadeal with the state of Maine and the city of Bath to subsidize a massive infrastructure “modernization” at its newly acquired facility.

Chabraja decided to thank the more than 700 people gathered at the Holiday Inn By The Bay, as the Portland Press Herald reported, for the apparent role their community played in assuring the viability of a major Maine employer for decades to come.

“A great old shipyard that got its start in the 19th century will have all the support necessary to be a formidable shipbuilder well into the 21st century,” Chabraja, who stepped down as CEO in 2009, said, according to the paper. “In support of BIW, you’ve put your money on the people of Maine—and on a shipyard that will now be around for another hundred years.”

But, little more than 20 years on, officials at General Dynamics are no longer so sanguine. They’re back at the negotiating table, saying the company needs an extension of a key $60-million tax credit component of the 1997 deal in order to remain competitive with a rival shipbuilder in Mississippi.

Continue reading In Maine, a History of Bold Claims and Vague Commitments From General Dynamics