Monday, December 22, 2008

Taking a Little of that Polycrystalline Shine off Another Bredesen Medicine Show

There's always a flip side to Governor Phil Bredesen's wheeling and dealing that lays between the PR lines. R. Neal points out that the new deal to build a semiconductor factory in Clarksville foregoes 20 years of property tax obligations and it relies on coal-fired power to produce solar panels. Sean Braisted's post has me thinking that if the incentives either do not deliver as promised or they get rolled back by other powers, then factory workers might be vulnerable to wages that are not exactly sustainable. So, far, the industry looks only light green.

This is the same Phil Bredesen who as Mayor arranged for the local water department to pay the Tennessee Titans $4 million per year for several decades in exchange for relocating from Houston (I tend to believe that the Titans should be required to bring home a proportionate number of Super Bowl trophies, maybe 2 per decade, or else pay all of Metro Water's money back to them; it seems only fair). Nashville is struggling to bring its stormwater infrastructure up-to-date. With Mr. Bredesen every silver lining has a dark cloud.

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