A broken job creation tool where millionaire developers rule

Big tax breaks for corporations that don’t produce jobs… Public subsidies for million-dollar luxury condos… Influence-peddling by politically-connected businesses…

Sadly, that just about sums up the sorry state New York’s job creation programs. While everyday New Yorkers struggle to find a job and pay the bills and small businesses try to keep their heads above water, our state’s main job creation programs are favoring corporate giveaways over smart investments that could create quality jobs and get our economy back on track.

This week, the New York Daily News reported that Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is fighting to hold on to a $1.4 million tax break for a company that created only one job and put back into the economy less than it took out. Paladino could be the poster child for what's wrong with so-called economic development in New York. His companies have received millions in IDA subsidies. He successfully lobbied to change Empire Zone boundaries, established to generate jobs and economic growth in areas with high poverty and unemployment, in order to collect tax breaks on a waterfront luxury condominium development. As a result, he was able to avoid paying $875,000 in sales taxes and the buyers of the million-dollar condos will enjoy more than $5 million in property tax breaks over the next 10 years.

But he's not alone. As we recently documented, New York's biggest job creation program handed out $135 million of your tax dollars to companies that created no jobs or actually cut them. Fortunately, state political leaders recently wised up and eliminated the wasteful and much-abused Empire Zone program. But IDAs, now the largest job creation tool in the state, have been allowed to maintain the status quo.

Let's send a message to all state candidates that we won't stand for an unaccountable job creation program that pads the pockets of millionaires instead of delivering the good jobs we need:

Sign our petition to reform IDAs today!