New Jersey's Ineffective Bribes

Eighty million dollars for Verizon? Thirty-seven million dollars for Citigroup? Sounds almost like a modern version of Monopoly, doesn't it?

Well, as a recent New York Times op-ed by New Jersey Policy Perspective's Jon Shure points out, those are just two of the tax breaks that the Garden State has doled out to major corporations since the mid-1990s. Yet, as New Jersey's experience with MSNBC suggests, the corporations that benefit from this largesse often don't live up to their end of the bargain.

Good Jobs First has long been making that very point - and this week introduced a new on-line tool to help the public keep track of all of the subsidies that one particular corporation, Wal-Mart, is receiving from states and localities around the country. See www.walmartsubsidywatch.org to learn more.