Incentives - what the media hasn't reported about those southern auto plants

[merh]

The Big Three need to ask for incentives, not a bailout.

Here is what Mississippi did to attract the foreign automobile companies:

Mississippi's incentive package includes $293.9 million for Toyota, much of which will cover costs for infrastructure such as roads and water and sewer lines for the 1,700-acre site at Blue Springs, near Tupelo. The package also has $30 million from the state for top-tier Toyota suppliers and $60 million from local governments for land acquisition and water supplies. Barbour signed the bills Friday afternoon, and they became law immediately.
Barbour and company officials announced Tuesday that Mississippi had been chosen as the site for Toyota's eighth vehicle assembly plant in North America - part of a growing pattern of auto companies choosing sites in the South.

In 2000, when Ronnie Musgrove was governor, Mississippi gave Nissan a $363 million incentive package to lure the state's first auto manufacturing plant. The Nissan plant opened in 2003 near Canton, about 25 miles north of Jackson and nearly 200 miles south of the Toyota site. The Nissan plant employs about 4,000 people and produced 278,000 vehicles last year.

Barbour, a Republican who defeated Democrat Musgrove four years ago, said the Nissan package did not include incentives for suppliers.
The Toyota plant near Tupelo will be part of what Barbour called a "Southern automotive manufacturing zone" that now includes the Nissan plant at Canton; a Hyundai plant at Montgomery, Ala.; a Mercedes plant at Tuscaloosa, Ala.; a Honda plant at Anniston, Ala.; a Nissan plant at Smyrna, Tenn. He said that "box" of plants should help spur development of suppliers.

"We're going to pursue suppliers aggressively," he said. "Because not every place is like Tupelo and the PUL Alliance big enough to have an automotive assembly plant. But every place is big enough to have a supplier that employs 50 or 150 or 500 people."
The bills are Senate Bill 3215, 3212, 3213, 3214.

http://www.dra.gov/media/article_detail.aspx?articleID=851

Some of the Katrina recovery monies were used to build a road for the Toyota plant.

And here is just a snippet about Alabama's incentives.

With the fate of the Big Three hanging in the balance, the chief of the United Auto Workers late last month singled out Alabama for criticism, saying the state has ponied up $700 million in tax breaks and perks for foreign automakers.

Ron Gettelfinger, whose union also is imperiled, complained that Alabama lawmakers are among those opposing a bailout of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.

Sen. Richard Shelby has become a target for barbs after the Alabama Republican emerged early on as a leading opponent of government aid for the Big Three. In a harshly worded letter, a Detroit computer company CEO denounced Shelby as a hypocrite since Alabama dangled $253 million in incentives to snag Mercedes-Benz in 1993.

http://blog.al.com/businessnews/2008/12/alabama_in_he_middle_of_auto_b.html

This is NOT ABOUT A regions ideology - this is about the lying pieces of shit in office that are trying to use the US auto industries troubles to bust the unions. It is about lies and hypocrisy of a few, not about the region they come from.