Sausage-making is way prettier than this!
By Paul O'Connor
Sunday, December 14, 2003

RALEIGH - Metaphoric allusions to lawmaking are rarely kind. We're told that legislating resembles sausage making, that the various players are like sharks smelling blood in the water and that lawmakers are always trying to load up the Christmas tree with pork.

Even low expectations of that nature couldn't prepare anyone for Tuesday's debates over an industrial recruitment package. The General Assembly was at its greedy, deal-making worst when it came to fixing two packages of incentives, one for RJR American and the other for Merck.

In conversations with legislators Tuesday and Wednesday, I found not a single one who spoke well of the process of taxpayer payouts to big corporations. But just about everyone who spoke with me then went out and voted for the package.

Republicans seemed most conflicted about the process, and hardest on themselves. One Republican representative accused herself of selling out. All of her principles told her she couldn't support big payouts to the companies, mostly in the form of tax credits, but she still had to vote yes.

Sen. Ham Horton said over lunch Wednesday that he didn't like any of the four major elements of the bill. But he voted for it. How could he not? The bill brought more than $100 million worth of incentives to RJR and probably sealed the deal to bring 800 jobs back to Winston-Salem.

Principles aside, legislators felt they had to vote for the bill because they perceive that jobs will be the big issue of 2004. They're right. With tens of thousands of North Carolina manufacturing jobs disappearing under the weight of global trade, it is clear that state government is now expected to go out and find jobs for the unemployed.
There were several things legislators really hated about the RJR package.

First, they hated that they were giving tax breaks to a company that announced 1,700 North Carolina layoffs just before it announced 800 new jobs. As many saw it, RJR was getting state money for laying off people.

Second, they hated the export cigarette tax credit and the fact that it pays tobacco companies for cigarettes made in other states.

Third, liberals hated giving tax breaks to cigarette companies to export a cancer-causing product to other countries.

But what could they do?

Nothing, they said. Jobs are desperately needed, and all of the leverage rests with the companies that have them.
Fear of offending the companies led to one of the most interesting fights of the day: Rep. Danny McComas of Wilmington wanted the tax credit tied to cigarettes exported through the state ports. That would create jobs in his district. Two of Forsyth's representatives on the House Finance Committee, carrying the political load for RJR, argued against the idea. McComas asked how they could call this a jobs bill if it covered cigarettes made in, and shipped from, Virginia without having to come into North Carolina?

But that's how the day went. There were a limited number of jobs on the table. Those legislators whose districts stood to get the jobs defended the bill. Those on the outside got to stick to their principles, at least in debate. The vocal opponents knew that at voting time the political pressure was there to push the bills along.

So, majorities in both houses held their noses and pushed the green button. North Carolina got a few thousand jobs for which the taxpayers paid a couple hundred million dollars. It was sausage-making at its best.

O'Connor writes editorials for the Journal from Raleigh. He can be reached at ocolumn@mindspring.com