The rich get richer....
Heartland Consumer Power District transfers a little more public wealth to private pockets. Heartland has handed its friends at the Prostrollo All-American Auto Mall a $4100 hiring incentive. Madison's monopoly new car dealer just added a 15,000-square-foot Ford-Lincoln building and hired ten new employees. Prostrollo's likely isn't hurting for cash or free-market incentive to make these changes happen on its own. $4100 is probably the dicker-space on a new Escalade. ($4100 is also just slightly more than the amount I paid after trade for my current vehicle from Lake Herman Auto.)
But every penny matters. A few thousand dollars can be make-or-break money for a small start-up. Here's what Heartland says it intends to do with its hiring incentives:
Heartland's growth incentive program is designed to help customer communities with business recruitment, retention and expansion as well as job creation by awarding hiring incentives and utility rebates to qualifying businesses [Heartland press release, 2012.05.10].
Company president Pat Prostrollo tells KJAM the handout helped pay for "an opportunity to send their employees to training outside the dealership in Minneapolis, Des Moines, and Chicago."
Heartland gets its money from selling power to the public. You just paid for Prostrollo's employees to go on trips.
Likely coming up next: glossy photo of Heartland economic development honcho and State Senator Russell Olson handing out a big check written on someone else's account to one of the richest men in Madison... who will subsequently write a big check to the campaign fund of the legislator who works just across the highway.
It's who you know, not if you need it. At some point a business should be grownup enough to make it on its own. Throwing money at the rich even makes working conservatives disgusted.
Not hard to realize why the developement money did not really increase the number of jobs in the county.
I don't think the general public realizes how much Pat Prostrollo and his family has invested in Madison. I have close friends that work at the dealership. Those jobs aren't like most in Madison: they pay far better.
It's easy to assume that because you own a business that you are wealthy and selfish. I can assure you that is not the case in Madison South Dakota.
It's not the selfish part, to me, Michael. It's the wealthy part. $4,100 isn't a whole lot to Pat Prostrollo, or his business. They make that much or more on a single car sale. But it's a lot to a start-up or a little, low-business shop.
Lots of little places go out of business all the time. I see quite a few around Madison. None of them got $4,100, and they really needed it.
It's really great if Pat Prostrollo helps, but that doesn't mean he should be given money. Bill Gates helps people, too, but we don't need to be giving him money, either.
You can be assured that at some time Intel has been given government money too.
Yeah, and I don't agree with that, either.
The exception, of course, is grant money. Intel is, first and foremost, a research corporation, and if they're given research grants, then that's great. But I will always disagree with gifts of money just for the sake of it and saying, "Hey! Use this for whatever, guys."