Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest economic development “triumph” is a deal to bring a high-tech chipmaker into the 450-acre Marcy Nanocenter outside Utica, where Cree Inc. will build a $1 billion plant with 600 skilled jobs at an average $75,000 salary.

Sounds great — until you learn the state is handing Cree $500 million to help build the plant, or about $833,000 per job, plus (according to the company) other “equipment and tooling.”

To be fair, Cuomo’s making Cree pay for that grant: The state insisted plant construction operate under “prevailing wage” rules, which essentially make it a union project.

Those rules add around 15% to costs, so the gov is basically bribing Cree to pass some of the money to union workers and, via dues, to the unions themselves. (As the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin notes, they need the cash to shore up ailing pension funds.)

Notably, another chip manufacturer, AMS AG of Austria, backed out of a lease on the very same lot back in 2016, abandoning $600 million in state funding.

Still not as bad as Soraa: The state built that LED company a $90 million factory in Syracuse — then Soraa walked away. The state had to offer the next tenant $15 million to retool the site.

All this investment is supposed to be boosting the upstate economy, which nonetheless continues to wither. But it lets the gov claim he’s on the job.

Any time Andrew Cuomo cuts a ribbon, check your wallet: You’ll find it a lot lighter.

© 2019 New York Post

Tags:

You may also like

Policy analyst: Cuomo wrong to write-off nursing home criticism as political conspiracy

“The importance of discussing this and getting the true facts out is to understand what did and didn’t happen so we can learn from it in case this happens again,” Hammond said. Read More

The good, the bad and the ugly in Cuomo’s budget

“We are at the early stages of what shapes up as the biggest state and city fiscal crisis since the Great Depression,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center. “Borrowing and short-term cuts aside, the budget doesn’t chart any clear path out of it.” Read More

Economic Experts Discuss Long-Term Impacts of Coronavirus

"My prediction for now is this is going to be the most severe and prolonged fiscal crisis New York state and its local governments have seen, really since the Great Depression when government did not operate at the scale it now operates," Empire Center Research Director E.J. McMahon said. Read More

Editorial: Cuomo’s problematic Medicaid maneuvers

“It’s everything that’s wrong with Albany in one ugly deal,” Bill Hammond, a health policy expert at the fiscally conservative Empire Center, told The Times. Read More

Gov. Cuomo’s Lawsuit on Pres. Trump’s Tax Cuts Dismissed

But according to the Empire Center, a non-profit group based in Albany, the overall impact of the Trump tax cuts actually benefited most state residents. Read More

NYS Healthcare Costs Rise Amid Report Of Pay-To-Play Allegations

Earlier this year, another fiscal watchdog group,  The Empire Center, found that  Cuomo’s budget office had delayed a $1.7 billion Medicaid payment from the previous fiscal year into the current fiscal year. Because of the delay, the governor was able to keep within a self imposed 2% yearly spending cap. Read More

After Hospitals’ Donation to New York Democrats, a $140 Million Payout

“It’s everything that’s wrong with Albany in one ugly deal,” said Bill Hammond, a health policy expert at the nonpartisan Empire Center who first noticed the budgetary trick. “The governor was able to unilaterally direct a billion dollars to a major interest group while secretly accepting its campaign cash and papering over a massive deficit in the Medicaid program.” Read More

What Cuomo’s executive order on vaping will and won’t do

“If you have these really young kids and teens getting hooked, then that’s not good," said Bill Hammond, director of health policy at the Empire Center for Public Policy. "But the first step would be to do some research, have a public hearing, get the best expert evidence that you have. Instead of reacting to headlines, find out what’s really going on and proceed with proposed regulations.” Read More