Residential Developers Refuse To Build In Dollar General Janesville Without Receiving Government Assistance

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It doesn't matter, from rich to poor, high rents or low, small cracker jack houses or sprawling McMansions, large 200-acre industrial parks or a single lot mini-strip mall, once the slippery slope economics of crony capital right-wing engineered corporate welfare TIF District subsidies is embraced, there is no stopping it until the swamp is drained at your local town hall.

To be clear, it's not a partisan democrat or republican thing. It's not liberal or conservative either. It is the widespread acceptance and normalization of applying trickle-down redistributive economics to foster economic growth. Mainly, it involves the legalization and setting up of a capital kickback process under the guise of economic growth and job creation. In Wisconsin municipalities, that kickback process is carried out under seemingly harmless TIF District Subsidization.

At least for this moment, perhaps due to the vast public scrutiny of the Foxconn boondoggle, it does appear that more people are beginning to realize that if massive government assistance is required for businesses to maintain a profit incentive or to attract economic activity - as real estate developers are starting to suggest - something is seriously wrong with either their business model or our economic policies. Or both.

Locally, Janesville's failed textbook growth policies coupled with Paul Ryan's dollar general tax and regulatory reforms have potential residential developers now crying hardship. In a nutshell; they refuse to build in a local economy Ryan and his local booster clubs built without receiving free land and/or massive local subsidies to offset their losses.

So you tell me: Is that a sign of economic development success or failure?