State Lawmakers To Review Impact of Texas Enterprise Fund
State lawmakers are studying whether taxpayers are getting their money’s worth when it comes to a controversial state program that has been using tax dollars during the last seven years to lure big corporations to Texas.
Governor Rick Perry asked the state legislature to create the Texas Enterprise Fund back in 2003. According to his supporters, the state program has created 52,000 jobs in Texas. Recently, a deal with Facebook to bring hundreds of jobs to Austin hinged on the taxpayer-funded incentives provided by the fund.
State Representative Angie Chen Button (R-Richardson) recently told the House Economic Development Committee the state needs to keep backing the fund. “We really need to double the fund, even in this very difficult economic time,” said Button. “For me, this is not an expenditure, this is an investment.”
Button estimates the state has spent $75,000 per job created by the fund. She also estimates the state has gotten $35 in return for every dollar invested in the fund.
According to State Representative Mark Strama (D-Austin), other states are seeking to sweeten similar deals. For his part, Strama does not like every aspect of the fund. “Its very pro-business, but its very anti-market,” he said, “I would be totally against it if we weren’t in an arms race with all these other states who are going to do it if we don’t.”
Will Lutz, the managing editor of the conservative-leaning Lone Star Report, said Perry believes the Texas economy is much better than the rest of the nation because of his leadership. “Every time he shows up at the opening of a new corporate plant, he reinforces that message,” said Lutz.
The Republican primaries afforded Perry the opportunity to do a lot of that. In the final weeks of the campaign, Perry announced more than a thousand jobs will likely come to Texas because of the fund.
The Texas Enterprise Fund has also made some contributions to El Paso’s economy. In 2006, the fund gave a $3 million grant to ADP so that it could build it’s ‘Solutions Center’ in the Sun City.
