The LuLac Edition #164, March 1, 2007

PICTURE INDEX: PROFESSOR HAROLD HILL OF THE MUSIC MAN FAME.


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WE NEED BAND UNIFORMS!!!!!

Did you ever see the musical “The Music Man”? I saw it in 1963 at the American Theatre in Pittston. It starred Robert Preston and Shirley Jones. The premise of the movie was that a flim flam artist (Preston playing the role of Professor Harold Hill) came to the little town of River City and promised all the folk there a better life by appealing to their better natures. His selling point was that if he could form a marching band and provide band uniforms for all the youth of the depressed town, life would be so much better there. The future would be golden and no trouble would come to the little town.
I don’t think about that movie much until I hear another scheme for economic development in Luzerne County. It seems like every few months, we are getting a visit from a Professor Harold Hill who is trying to sell us the band uniforms. We hear about incredible plans for an airport in Hazleton that will provide 4500 jobs, (they even produced a handy dandy counter to show you just how high those job numbers can climb!) an actor, Paul Sorvino tells us he’ll build a movie production studio in Scranton and real estate moguls who make hundreds of thousands of dollars in rents will redevelop a property. It all sounds good until all of them cry poverty and tell us they need a tax break on the property they want to buy, or the business they want to start. Like Professor Harold Hill, they come into our area with slick talk, big promises and the magic carrot on the stick that this area has been chasing for generations: HIGH PAYING JOBS. The phrase HIGH PAYING JOBS is the Music Man version of BAND UNIFORMS. I get the impression that all one has to do to get any tax forgivceness or start up money for a business is to utter the words HIGH PAYING JOBS. Let’s take a look at the record of those companies who have come in here and promised high paying jobs. The Industrial Park in Mountaintop has its Pepsico plant and there are a few other national concerns. But in Scranton/Wilkes Barre, where are those companies that got public funding? How’s that Call Center on South Main Street doing? Busted, now owned by a non profit entity, Wilkes College. And remember that big bank concern that relocated in downtown Scranton a few years back only to exit the area in a flash? We were told First Union would stay forever because the CEO was a local guy!
We in this region are constantly being duped by the Harold Hills of a new century. They aren’t wearing band uniforms, they’re wearing Armani. And our Kranson’s sport coat wearing Commissioners and public officials constantly buy the line of crap by these corporate welfare people who wouldn’t dream of parting with one red cent of their own. Did you ever notice that none of these guys ever lose their huge mcmansions or fancy classic cars when the businesses they run into the ground, supported by tax payer dollars grind to a halt? And the Public Officials can’t be blamed by party, this is bi partisan stupidity. Both Republicans and Democrats have fallen for this line. “Give me your tax money and I’ll give you jobs!” The jobs that are promised are high paying ones but that promise never becomes a reality. They tell us how important NEPA is to their business, how close we are to the major commercials centers of the country and my personal favorite, how good our work ethic is. Yet when a company in Olyphant lays off 200 workers, the company says they’ll hire them back, but with reduced pay! Yeah, that sounds real fair.
At the turn of the last century, the workers in this region were subjected to company stores, terrible working conditions and virtually little room for advancement. Things have changed, a bit, but not much. There are no company stores, no land or coal barons and for the most part workers are employed in a safe environment. But the economic stability and status of those jobs are just as perilous as they were a century ago. Companies, who got tax breaks from our governing bodies can fire anyone at will. And if you try to contact an Attorney in this area to see if you were treated unjustly, you won’t find any lawyer with any guts or balls willing to even look at your case. There seems to be an abuse of area workers that is unheard of in the rest of the country. We’ll lay you off, bring you back but reduce your pay! Who wins in that scenario? Anybody? Certainly not the working families in this area.
We need to have government stop doling out tax money to businesses just because they come in here, talk a good game and promise us high paying jobs. We need to keep track of those taxpayer investments to see if it was worth our while to give that money away. And we need to quit relying on out of town sharpies and connected insiders that promise us things out of hot air. (Remember Congressman Kanjorski’s Wall Street West crap? Even the Wall Street people debunked that fiasco. And while we’re at it, why are county and state taxes going toward the people at Hillside Farms to provide a “working farm” for an individual family that is personally worth millions?)
NEPA taxpayers are being Harold Hilled to death. We berate welfare mothers sometimes trying to get jobs under the table to support themselves. They are far more honest than the corporate people who take our money and run. This has to end.
Voters and taxpayers need to start saying no to the guys who tell us their band uniforms are going to save us economically. To be fair, there might be someone out there sincere enough to become a good corporate partner and employer, but that’s as likely as trying to find a virgin in a bordello. And if they are a good corporate citizen, they’ll have their own money and not have their hand out.


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