How nice, more pork-barrel spending from the feds. I'm sure folks in Nevada are just giddy about their tax-dollars going to Oregon.

Reducing taxes and fees (income, property, SDCs, payroll, etc.) is a much better way to invest in American companies, not federal tax giveaways.

Great tax dollars being investing in producing products that other tax dollars will be used to purchase. At least we don't have to buy our streetcars in the Czech Republic now.

Atlanta, Austin, Boise, Chicago, Cincinnati, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Oakland, Sacramaneto, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Spokane and Washington DC are just a few of the over 50 cities in America that are in some stage of planning, or studying the possibility of, a streetcar line http://www.heritagetrolley.org/PlannedSystems.htm. Currently if any or all of these lines are built the actual streetcars will have to come from foreign countries. You might call the appropriation pork if the money was to only fund new cars for Portland but as you can see the future cars that are produced here will help feed a growing national demand rather than furthering our reliance on foreign workers. Since the United States hasn't produced streetcars for decades, and no company in America has even considered adding streetcars to it's production lines, it took a subsidy to bring the production and high-paying jobs home. Not only home to America, but home to our local economy too!

"…it took a subsidy to bring the production and high-paying jobs home."

Classic collectivist rhetoric.

Using your logic, every private business and corporation should get subsidies for R&D, production, management, etc.

If we truly lived in a free market society, we wouldn't have to spend tax dollars to entice chip manufacturing plants, football stadiums and high rise condos to be built here. Is there some reason Oregon Iron Works can't develop streetcars on their own?

Doesn't it bother you that we're giving tax dollars to Oregon Iron Works while downtown Portland is becoming a war zone?

Chris McMullen:

I've often wondered how true that is. I think the problem is people tend to think of a business as a monolithic "entity". That this entity has one mind and is like any other citizen.

But the reality is that a large company is composed of a lot of people who may or may not want to use the savings to increase their local economy. If they are given breaks, what incentive do they have to actually do what we need?

Especially now. Those large companies are hurting. If they receive these breaks, wouldn't the smarter move be to keep the savings and ride out the slump (or make their take look higher for shareholder, etc...)?

You can see this with small local businesses. If they were given breaks they would save that money and not spend it. The reason they would do this is because people aren't buying their product right now. Why hire more workers when products and services aren't moving?

The reality, it seems, is that people who call for the breaks want it for themselves. Why should they care whether the economy is doing well when they are making a lot of money for themselves?

It has been and continues to be the trend that as one amasses more wealth there is a desire to become more isolated. More money comes in and we move ourselves to areas where we don't have to deal with those problems and at the same time forget that the problem still exists.

The correct thing to do is to create new markets for things like this Streetcar idea. This is more in-tuned with true capitalism than simply giving business money and hoping the problem solves itself. As MarkDaMan stated above, there is a potent for a large market.

By giving companies breaks it assumes the market is perfect and that they just need some money to kick things back into gear. This is hardly the case right now.

"Doesn't it bother you that we're giving tax dollars to Oregon Iron Works while downtown Portland is becoming a war zone?"

I live in downtown (and not in the rich pearl area). Which part is a war zone because it's fine down here.

Chris McMullen said "Using your logic, every private business and corporation should get subsidies for R&D, production, management, etc."

not what I said Chris...we were talking about a specific company with a specific subsidy in a NEW and GROWING market that provides jobs to local Oregonians. Please stick to what I wrote and stop trying to assume you know what I'm thinking, that really is an irritating trait!

"Which part is a war zone because it's fine down here."

Really? There seems to be gunfire erupting downtown almost every weekend lately.

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=31033

http://portland.metblogs.com/

"As MarkDaMan stated above, there is a potent for a large market."

So what? Did Apple Computer get handouts when they produced the first PC? Or did Henry Ford get tax subsidies for the advent of the automobile? What about Microsoft? Gutenberg and moveable type? RCA and the television?

If there's potentially a large market for streetcars, companies wouldn't need subsidies to develop them.

Moreover, there as a supposed -shortage- of tax revenues federally and locally. Spending our money on vote-buying schemes while police and schools go unfunded is nauseating.

I wonder what you, Markdaman and the author would think if this $4 million was going to Monaco Coach? There *is* a large market for RVs and fifth wheels you know.

My issue with these targeted developments as opposed to tax breaks in general for all businesses is that government has a poor track record in private enterprise.

Government usually likes to foster things like PGE Park or the Convention Center under the guise of increasing property values and in turn prop taxes. Both of which are hemorraging money as we speak.

Most people in the public sector have never had a job where they had to give the public what they really wanted in order to make money.

So, not to undercut everyone's discussion about the merits of susbidies, which is a worthy debate, but what we are talking about here is really a contract.

Portland (and soon, other cities) put in a contract with OR Ironworks, Inc. for a streetcar prototype that they would have bought anyways, overseas. How can you twist that into a negative thing? The company already exists and they will be doing work similar to what they've been doing already - (they've done stuff for the air force, navy and other governments). The only difference is that they have a new contract for a new product, which demand is growing for all around the country. John Carroll, Board Chairman of Streetcar, Inc., went out of his way to find an American company that he could get the services from. We would have ended up using federal funds for this important transportation project one way or the other; this way, though, creates jobs for Oregonians.

But lest I digress, I want to challenge you and ask, "Where is the subsidy in all of this?" You can argue that just because the government is buying something that its a subsidy, but that argument doesn't hold much water. Does the city "subsidize" PGE when we buy electricity from them? No- we are paying for a service, which is what we are doing in this case, too.

Just because this was bought with tax dollars doesn't mean it is bad thing. Reflexive and reactionary anti-government sentiment is a tired philosophy. The government provides people with necessary services which they pay for with their taxes.

"Really? There seems to be gunfire erupting downtown almost every weekend lately.

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=31033"

You know it's funny that you posted that link because if you actually READ the article it says:

"Assaults lowest in five years

Although the recent incidents have alarmed some downtown business owners, police statistics show that serious crime is declining in the retail core. Aggravated assaults — the category that includes shootings — are at the lowest level in five years downtown."

If this is a war zone then what were things like 5 years ago? Armageddon?