Boeing takes taxpayers hostage

Editor's note: Business Reform Magazine provides real biblical answers for real business issues. Visit us.

On September 9, voters in Tulsa, Oklahoma will vote on whether or not to raise nearly $1 billion in new sales taxes. Bill LaFortune, Tulsa's pro-business, Republican mayor has focused attention on making the city attractive to large businesses, and more than one third of the money being raised is specifically targeted at attracting Boeing's new 7E7 jet manufacturing facility to the city. Although Tulsa isn't unique in chasing companies, Boeing may perhaps have become the king of taking existing and future jobs hostage and demanding ransom from taxpayers for their release.

Tulsa faces stiff competition in chasing the thousand or so Boeing manufacturing jobs. Thirty-five states have bid on the plant, with Washington being the most generous, offering Boeing $3.2 billion in tax breaks. For the northwest state, Boeing's threats are serious business. The aviation giant provides as many as 200,000 existing jobs, either directly or indirectly for Washington residents. Furthermore, the company sent the very clear signal to Olympia in 2001 when it followed through on threats to move its headquarters out of Seattle. In that competition, Boeing chose Chicago, not coincidentally because that city offered the largest tax incentives.

Boeing's clear ransom note? If you want our jobs, you need to pay our price. The tactic apparently is working, at least for the company. Washington taxpayers' ability to survive $3.2 billion in ransom payments, or Tulsa taxpayers ability to support $1 billion in new taxes is much less clear.

However, other companies are learning from Boeing's success. Just within Tulsa, at least three other companies have issued their own ransom notes. The $1 billion tax package also include $22 million for American Airlines to keep that troubled flyer's maintenance facility in town. Since the Boeing package was announced, rumors have also conveniently leaked out of Citgo and TV Guide that those companies may move their headquarters out of town (with the obvious but unstated postscript of "unless taxpayers cough up the ransom").

TRENDING: Obama's claim that he broke a racist classmate's nose is met with skepticism

For a small city like Tulsa, these potential losses seem devastating. The former "oil capital of the world" lost that distinction in the 1980s when the oil industry crashed and most of the surviving companies moved to Houston. In the 1990s, the city rebuilt its economy largely around telecom companies including WorldCom, Williams and McLeod. The thousands of jobs created by those companies have largely vanished over the past three years.

However, local government leaders continue to favor the ransom demands of the big companies over the real growth needs of small businesses within their communities. In his Batesline web log, Michael Bates points out that two-thirds of net new jobs are created by small businesses, and that these small businesses create virtually all net new jobs during a recession and the early portion of recovery.

Like the other multi-million dollar ransoms being offered to Boeing, Tulsa's new tax plan includes virtually nothing to help the small business owner. But then again, new taxes rarely are the best answer for anything. Leaving the money in the hands of individuals to invest in entrepreneurial ventures is clearly a better solution.

If you are a taxpayer in a community that is considering paying Boeing's ransom, think about it this way. Would you rather pay $3,000 so that the government can bring a rich new family to town, or would your rather pay $1,000 directly to a struggling local family to help them grow and prosper, albeit in a somewhat more modest form of prosperity?

If you chose the later, then I encourage you to do two things. First, send a clear signal to your local government that you don't support their ransom payments. Second, invest in local small businesses.

And if you happen to be the CEO of a major American corporation, I make only one small request. Please stop holding us hostage. Be bold and stand for what is right. Refuse to accept government bribes, or at least refuse to consider them when making decisions about locating operations. (I hope that you wouldn't consider such bribery when choosing other forms of suppliers.)

Consider the wisdom offered by God in His Word:

"You shall not take a bribe; for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of the just." (Exodus 23:8)

"The king give stability to the land by justice, but a man who takes bribes overthrows it." (Proverbs 29:4)

RELATED: Making decisions that facilitate success

"For oppression makes a wise man mad, and a bribe corrupts the heart." (Ecclesiastes 7:7)

Be wise. Bring stability to your company. Do not let your corporate greed for bribery overthrow your business.

.