Ok something has to be said about Matt Mackoviak's Statesman opinion piece asking people to reject incentives for Tesla. I once thought of him as a potential city council candidate because of his efforts in opposing the city's repeal of the "no sit, lie or camping" ordinance.
But Mackoviak's line of reasoning for not giving Tesla the incentives they need has left me wondering how I could have once thought of him so highly. The opinion piece is full of inaccuracies and disingenuous claims. I'm equally baffled that the Statesman would give him a platform by publishing something so third rate.
He starts by outlining the tax rebates Del Valle ISD and Travis County will give Tesla. He says, "This is bad news and it should concern every taxpayer." Many like him fail to understand that these are tax rebates. We are not writing to check to Tesla for $80M -- we are merely rebating tax money that we would not receive otherwise if they were to go somewhere else. If they go somewhere else, we get nothing from the company in taxes. If they stay, we get a little something from the company in taxes, but more impactful, we also get taxes from the money that Tesla injects into the economy through employees' salaries and the ancillary businesses that sprout up because of Tesla's presence. The net effect they will have on the economy will more than make up for the small investment that's asked of the local jurisdictions over the 10 year period. The idea that we are writing a check to Tesla is the same false argument that the NY politicians made against giving Amazon rebate incentives. People thought their tax dollars were going directly to pay for Amazon's incentives. We know how that turned out in the end. Mackoviak was once (or still is) the Travis County Republican Party Chair. I would think that someone in that position would have the intelligence to understand this very simple concept of tax rebates. This only leads me to the assumption that it's not that he lacks intelligence but rather lacks integrity and is being disingenuous... for what ulterior motive, I will not try to assume.
He later goes on to say, "Rather than throwing money at a billionaire who doesn't need it, we should be using it to support our communities that are in desperate need of help." Again, Tesla goes away we get nothing. That land will most likely remain under-developed for the next 10-20 years. That is the most important idea that people need to understand. And again, I would think that he's intelligent enough to understand the difference between the CEO's personal finances and a public company's finances, and that they're not commingled. I believe it's a lousy attempt to gin up the emotions of the uninformed/uneducated using false logic. It's actually pretty sleazy. And if anybody is familiar with the auto industry, they know that it operates on razor thin margins. These incentives are necessary for Tesla to continue be viable. They are not doing it out of pure greed. And in the end, Tesla will be a huge economic driver that will help support our communities, more so than anything that's been envisioned for that property.
I can go on and on pointing out other inaccuracies in his opinion piece, i.e. that's not a Gigafactory in Buffalo, NY and the people of Buffalo are not unhappy about the investment, but instead I'll post a link to the article here and let you judge for yourself. I'm also posting a link to another opinion piece that argues the pro side of granting incentives to compare and contrast.
Matt Mackoviak's opinion piece (anti incentives):
https://www.statesman.com/opinion/20...rate-subsidies
Gary Farmer's opinion piece (pro incentives):
https://www.statesman.com/opinion/20...tinrsquos-door
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