Your state legislators

States pay corporations to move in. In 2017 Wisconsin promised Foxconn, a company headquartered in Taiwan, nearly three billion dollars in tax credits for 13,000 jobs. By the end of 2022 Foxconn had created 1,029 of them. Every state runs programs like it. The argument above is that the states with money will have choices in the years ahead, and this is one place a state gives that money away without a good return on investment, unless you’re a politician looking for easy contributions and ready to hand out tax-payer dollars. Your state legislature can stop it.

Ask your state legislators for four things:

1. No new relocation or expansion incentives: no tax credits, cash grants, free land, or infrastructure built for one company to bring it in or keep it from leaving.

2. Every existing deal published, by company, with the jobs promised next to the jobs delivered.

3. Every dollar recovered from every company that missed its number, the way Wisconsin’s renegotiated Foxconn contract lets the state recover all incentives paid in any year the company defaults.

4. A preference for businesses based in your state when the state buys goods and services.

Here is how to reach them. Find your state legislators here. Email them, call the district office, send a fax through FaxZero, or print a letter and mail it. Form letters do not work, and identical messages get counted once, so write it in your own words. Say who you are, where in the district you live, why you care, and what you want them to do. To find a deal in your own state, search the state or the company in the Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker.

If you call, cover these points:

• Your name and where in the district you live.

• One deal in your state, by company name and dollar amount, and how many of the promised jobs showed up.

• Which of the four asks above you want the legislator to carry.

• The legislator’s position, and the name of any bill they will introduce or cosponsor.