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Trump rally was more quacker factory than cracker plant; Mary Trimmer (MT); Beaver County Times (BCT); August 18, 2019.
Below is a review of the subject letter.
“Am I the only resident of Beaver County that is embarrassed and ashamed by the national news coverage of the clown show that took place in Potter Township on Tuesday?”
[RWC] Yes. Based on the live BCT Facebook video, I thought the “clown show” was in front of the Beaver County Courthouse. <g> After all, that’s where the huge balloons mocking President Trump were located.
“What must the country think of us? This campaign rally, disguised as a speech on energy, incurred costs for logistics and security that should be borne by the RNC and Trump campaign and not the humble taxpayers of this county. The ridiculous display was more quacker factory than cracker plant. Is it too much to expect our government officials to bill the proper entities?”
[RWC] Who cares what the rest of the country thinks of us?
As for the rally at the plant, I agree it looked like a political rally and should be paid for by “the proper entities.”
“Furthermore, is my math fuzzy or does $1.65 billion in tax subsidies for 500-600 jobs compute to approximately a cost of $2.75 million per job to Pennsylvania taxpayers? Which politicians thought this was a good idea? This is for the privilege of the possibility for pipeline explosions (already happening), contamination of well water and our irreplaceable Ohio River, and God-knows-what to the air we breathe. What an obscenity!”
[RWC] Yes, MT’s math is fuzzy/misleading. To get her “cost of $2.75 million per job to Pennsylvania taxpayers,” MT simply divided $1.65 billion by 600 “permanent” jobs. This calculation ignores the time factor. Will the jobs last one year ($2.75 million/job-year), 10 years ($276.4 thousand/job-year), or 20 years ($138.2 thousand/job-year)? Note these calculations ignore the 6,000 temporary construction jobs. That said, I don’t like so-called tax breaks. As I wrote in a previous review, “The problem is everyone likes to tax businesses until the cows come home, then those same people wonder why new businesses don’t view PA favorably. Get rid of so-called ‘business taxes’ and tax breaks go away.” I hate to break the news, but we’ll have the same problem with “green” businesses.
As for MT’s other concerns, those would have existed even without the cracker because the pipelines from the wells would still crisscross the county to deliver the gas and NGLs to crackers outside the county. Regarding “green” businesses, they too will have environment issues unless the components are made elsewhere and all we do is assemble the finished product.
Our topology is another issue. Unless you were asleep and/or a non-local, you had to note the vast and expensive earthmoving Shell had to do before it laid the first concrete slab. Part of that was pollution remediation for the zinc smelter (St. Joe) that used to occupy that property. That’s a lot different than would have happened with a flat Gulf Coast site. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say all Shell would have needed to do was rent a few bulldozers for a week or so to knock down the scrub pine trees, push them into piles, then burn the piles of pines. In contrast, it cost Shell $60 million just to rework the intersection of Route 18 and Beaver Valley Expressway (I-386) and make other road fixes.
“Which politicians thought this was a good idea?” Just about every pol who had constituents who would benefit.
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