Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

usernamedunbeentaken t1_j5tvc3y wrote

Reply to comment by grottycrumpet in LEGO leaving Enfield for new U.S. HQ in Boston by gyokuro

??? Is that a real question?

All else equal, where would you rather have your business? In a place where you get to keep more of your businesses earnings or less of your businesses earnings.

Lower taxes make places more attractive to businesses. In this particular case, Boston has something that appeals to a business (although this seems to be more of a consolidation move than anything else). To compete with places that have other attractions that CT doesn't, we need other ways to make our state appealing. One of the easiest and best ways to make a state appealing to business is to lower the tax burden on those businesses.

2

grottycrumpet t1_j5txutj wrote

If I’m a knowledge based company competing for skilled workers, it’s not really a choice. Go where the talent is or get out-innovated and die.

If I’m a low skill company that can operate anywhere, yeah cost of living is more important. And I’ll go to a low cost of living state.

GE, Lego, Aetna (before being purchased by CVS), MassMutual & Empower all left because kids do not stay in this sad, boring ass state after college. I know HR folks and managers in several of these big companies, hell if you read the article you’d see Lego said it too. It’s and uphill battle getting kids to move here for their internships/first jobs out of college.

CT is competing for skilled workers. That’s what this article is talking about. We’ll never be able to compete with low density/low education/low skill states for low skilled workers/companies. We need to keep young talent. We’re failing at it because we don’t have what young people want—which is walkability, culture, places to hang out with to other young people and drink without worrying about driving. We need better cities.

2

usernamedunbeentaken t1_j5tzf0p wrote

We will never have better cities, at least enough to compete with NY and Boston. There is no scenario where Hartford becomes as attractive as NY or Boston to young people.

Sure, we can improve Hartford and New Haven, but the cost involved would be better spent on tax cuts, at least as far as attracting businesses and jobs and high income individuals (who pay taxes).

In the last century, Fairfield county became a hub for financial services such as hedge funds because of the low tax rate, not because Greenwich and Stamford were cooler for young people than Manhattan. We still have a legacy benefit of that, but have since squandered that advantage to a great extent by implementing and raising the income tax.

If we want to attract businesses and workers in an increasingly remote work environment, the best value for the buck is lower taxes.

/although that said, paying down our fiscal obligations is the best thing to do with any temporary windfall, which is what Lamont is prudently doing.

1

grottycrumpet t1_j5u2dkg wrote

Agreed that fiscal crisis was probably the biggest thing spooking big employers, so it’s great we’re finally paying that down. It’s sad to see Lego go but I remember hearing this kind of news more often in the 2010s/during the Malloy austerity years, I feel like I hear more good news now than back then at least.

I’m hoping we eventually get some federal attention for our crappy infrastructure, which’ll help some of our cities’ problems long term. CT always pays much more FIT per person than we ever get back. I don’t think CT cities will turn around in my lifetime/next 50 years or so, but something ambitious like this would really set things in motion for future generations. https://hartford400.org/

Honestly I think a series of smallish improvements can really help. Like, we can speed up/flatten out the crappy Metro North tracks for faster commutes into NYC. I just took the Hartford line to New Haven, the train went 110 in some spots, it was great. Got to New Haven in no time. Then around Bridgeport you slow down to an unnacceptable 10 mph, who would bother taking the train if it’s that slow? Fixing that can’t be that expensive. It’s just adding fixing the ballast under the tracks?

We can take better advantage of transit we already have. Build some apartments on some of the parking lots in downtowns/near transit.

Honestly I don’t think improving our cities is as expensive or difficult as people think. Stuff gets proposed by private developers all the time. Just have to get past the NIMBYs

3