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December 6, 2008
Obama taps corporate welfare maven for Commerce Secretary
DC Examiner
Timothy P. Carney explains Obama's pick of Forest City Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce:
If you’re looking for how Richardson wielded the government purse to benefit private enterprise, start by checking out his campaign finance reports. His second-largest corporate source of money in his 2008 presidential bid was a developer called Forest City Enterprises.The name jumps out because “Forest City” hardly sounds New Mexican. Indeed, the company is based in Cleveland, but Richardson has earned their love.
In Richardson’s second term, he supported and signed the “Tax Increment for Development Act,” perhaps the most important in a string of subsidies for Forest City’s massive Albuquerque-area development called Mesa del Sol. Tax-increment financing is an arrangement whereby Forest City wins the right to pocket future tax payments after Mesa del Sol increases the value of the land.
Forest City Executive Vice President James Ratner was candid in a 2007 interview with Governing magazine about one factor in the company’s success: using big government and politicians’ ambitions for profit. The path to profit, he explained, is through “a partnership ... with government that gives them what they want, and gives the company what it wants.”
Posted by amy at December 6, 2008 10:16 AM