Where's a task force to recruit Volvo?

By Joe Soucheray / Because I wanted the names of the people on the task force, I called the office of the mayor of St.

[Lewis Sinclair]

Joe WANTS "foreigners" coming to America? Wonders never cease. Wait. Maybe this is a belated April Fools column. Nice try, but really mediocre. Maybe it plays better on the radio, where Joe and Rookie can do bad accents and make barnyard noises.

[Red Ryder]

St.Paul is more concerned with trains, dog parks,"dangerous dogs" ,smoking bans and rec centers than having jobs stay. Even "good, union jobs."

[Red Ryder]

They could make Volvos that have the Wellstone sticker already on the car.

That sounds tailor-made for MN.

[Brenda Star]

Why would any company want to locate their business in this state. We have one of the highest corporate tax base, high crime, out of control spending, and a city council that would rather see you taking a train than a car.
Those are only a few reasons, I'm sure others can add to the list.

Business is leaving this state in droves, not coming here. Get with the program Joe. WE DON'T NEED YOU, is the states cry.

[Red Ryder]

***New Study: U.S. States Suffer as They Become Biggest Corporate Taxers in the World***
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/sho...

WASHINGTON, Mar 18, 2008 - A new study from the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group in Washington, shows that most American states tax job providers at a higher rate than any other country in the developed world.
"This is startling news for America's businesses and workers," said Tax Foundation president Scott Hodge, the study's author. "Tax competition for jobs and investment is fierce, and the U.S. continues to fall further and further behind. Our states should be the world's leaders in many things, but high taxation should not be one of them.

The high federal corporate tax rate is literally crushing states' competitive abilities. That means fewer jobs for American workers."
Counting the federal rate alone, the U.S. has the world's highest corporate tax rate, but including average sub-national rates (federal plus state in the U.S.), Japan edges out the U.S. for the highest-tax location (see table).

This new study breaks the tax down state-by-state, adding each state's corporate tax rate to the federal corporate tax rate. The results show that 24 states impose, when combined with the federal rate, a higher business tax rate than in any other nation. In fact:
24 states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than top-ranked Japan.
32 states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than third-ranked Germany.
46 states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than fourth-ranked Canada.
All 50 states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than fifth-ranked France.

"If federal lawmakers are serious about making the U.S. corporate tax system more competitive globally, they will have to partner with state officials to lower the nation's overall corporate tax burden," Hodge added. "Likewise, state officials should have a vested interest in cutting the federal corporate tax rate because there is only so much they can do to improve their own competitiveness.

After all, even corporations in the three states that do not impose a major state-level corporate tax—Nevada, South Dakota, and Wyoming—still shoulder a higher corporate tax rate than France, and 25 other major countries, because of the 35 percent federal corporate rate."

The table below lists each state's combined corporate tax rate, and then compares them (bolded) with the rates of our major trading partners and competitors.

[Greg Pullman]

What I would ask Joe is did he ever hear back from any of the messages he left?

Minnesota...interested in creating jobs? Don't be silly. Well...in the private sector. They have no problem with creating MORE government jobs.

Volvo wants to build cars at a Ford plant in the US. In the last few years Ford has closed plants in Georgia, New Jersey, Virginia, Missouri and Michigan. Our own plant in St Paul is scheduled to close in 2009.

How much do you want to bet those other states will be bending over backwards to lure Volvo to manufacture cars in there state?

[doubtingthomas]

How about getting a UGO plant here that would really fit in here.

[EObserver]

Pretty amazing. Here we have Joe showing that he understands the first rule of fishing: If you give a person a fish, one will need another shortly. If you give a person a fishing pole and teach him how to fish, you have created an income machine.
Minnesota seems to want tax increment from condos rather than jobs. It may be so because generally government types go out to lunch with builders rather than entrapeneurs.
When our journalists are doing all then superstar promoting and cold calling that our leaders of government might be doing, it says the jig is up.
Keep up the good work, Joe.
The Evansville Observer

[J Adams]

Kommandant Coleman and the Marxists in St Paul hate all business. Do you really think they want cars built here again? These fools live for only two things, power and making government bigger.

[reader]

Government getting bigger? Not in Minnesota's state government. It has shrunk, and with a hiring freeze, will keep getting smaller. That's fine with me, but don't throw out lies and rhetoric about larger government that aren't true to push your political agenda.

[Disgruntled Outstater]

Get rid of LGA and see how fast cities figure out that industry is actually a good thing. I swear that most towns here are trying to run SimCity with no yellow spaces. Lots of mass transit to bring people to work, but no jobs to actually go to.