Subsidy Sheet: Subsidy stories you may have missed

September 20, 2024

NY corporate giveaway news from this week:

  • NY’s crony capitalism contagion jumps the Hudson, infects “progressive Democrat” Phil Murphy as NJ approves $14 billion in corporate tax breaks in less than a week (NY Times).
  • Both the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service criticized Micron’s plans for its upstate Clay, NY chip fab, which they say will not conform to federal law (Syracuse Post-Standard). The Post-Standard also reports that the plant’s groundbreaking was delayed again, now to November 2025.
  • Can Kathy Hochul stop lying about the non-existent Micron $100 billion? Can credulous reporters stop repeating her lie? (Yes, we are using the no-no word “lie,” as in repeated, deliberate falsehood intended to mislead.) Micron has never committed either formally or informally to spending $100 billion on its Clay/Syracuse metro chip fab. Micron has said it plans or intends to invest “up to” $100 billion (or “up to” $125 billion over the next 20-plus years). Micron’s quarterly reports say the company plans to open the first phase of its Clay chip fab at a cost of $20 billion, including $3 billion in federal CHIPS aid, sometime after 2028. (Note, that Micron’s August 2024 SEC 10-Q filing reports it has a “non-binding term sheet with the State of New York that provides “up to $5.5 billion in funding for the planned four-fab facility over the next 20-plus years.” 
  • Despite our criticism and skepticism, we hope a Micron fab in the Syracuse area — one not on protected wetlands — is a big success and helps create many good jobs in upstate New York. 
  • Film industry proponents and critics debate the value of the NYS Film/TV tax credit for Western NY (Spectrum News). As the article notes, “the state Department of Taxation and Finance released a report estimating the tax breaks given from 2018 to 2022 drew 15 cents in direct tax revenue and about 30 cents total for every dollar spent.”
  • The left-leaning Jacobin writes about how a private equity firm, Silver Lake, is getting hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies after buying up minor league baseball teams.

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