A new report by Bill Shkurti, distinguished adjunct professor with The Ohio State University’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs, and Fran Stewart, researcher and writer for the Ohio Manufacturing Institute at Ohio State’s College of Engineering, seeks to “inform gubernatorial candidates and Ohio voters about policy choices that lie ahead.”
Their report notes that, while Honda started with a motorcycle plant in Marysville, Ohio, in 1979 with 64 employees and grew by its 40th anniversary in Ohio to 15,000 employees and a $11 billion investment in auto manufacturing, such success is not guaranteed.
The report cites examples such as Volkswagen’s promise of 20,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, where taxpayers lost $70 million in incentives when the plant closed; Foxconn’s inability to deliver on promises it made when Wisconsin offered $3 billion in incentives; and Peloton recently backing out of a promise of 2,000 jobs and a $400 million investment in a Toledo-area plant.
The report says, “Experience has shown that announcing jobs and creating jobs are far from one and the same. Intel is not Peloton, Foxconn nor Volkswagen, but it does exist in a very competitive industry where success is not guaranteed.” It goes further to point out that while the endeavor looks promising, even Wall Street analysts are “divided as to the company’s future growth prospects.”
With those and other examples in mind, Shkurti and Stewart raise questions for voters and Ohio’s next governor to ensure that Intel keeps its promises for a $20 billion taxpayer investment in the Licking County Intel site development and what Ohio should do to further capitalize on its $2 billion in Intel incentives to grow the Ohio economy.
Read the report here: https://glenn.osu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-03/Intel-Supplement-Ohio-2022.pdf