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Is A New Hyundai Plant Worth $123 Million to KY Taxpayers?

by Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Crit Luallen’s smiling face graces us on the front page of the newspaper, as she expresses her eagerness to give away $123 million of our hard-earned tax dollars to attract a huge Hyundai plant to the state.  Her other major project has been to spend the past year pushing an initiative to severely restrict the property rights of all Kentucky landowners in order to preserve farm land and green spaces.  The Hyundai plant would involve paving a huge tract of farmland and would attract many other businesses that would themselves pave additional huge tracts of farmland, which seems to directly contradict her stated intentions of preserving the natural beauty of the land and the green spaces at all costs, even at the expense of the rights of its citizens.  The only thing that is consistent about both her plans is that they are both done at the expense of the citizens – one at the expense of tax dollars, and the other at the expense of the right to control our own property.

So, would it be a good thing to have a Hyundai plant in Kentucky or not?  Do the benefits justify the costs?  Certainly, a new factory would bring many jobs to the state, which would help many people.  On the other hand, draining our pockets of $123 million harms many people and prevents that money from being used by those who earned it, which itself would have created many jobs.  As with any economic project, some people will benefit from it, and some will be harmed by it.  For example, businesses that are competing with Hyundai for workers will be harmed, because wage rates will go up.  This may cause local businesses to go under.  Those who want to preserve green space will be harmed, while those who want their children to be able to stay in the area and earn a decent living to support their families may benefit.  The real question should not be whether a new Hyundai plant would be good or bad for the overall economy of Kentucky but rather whether it is appropriate for the state to forcibly take money from one business enterprise to give to another.  And the answer should be a resounding “No!”

Our country was founded on the principle of equal justice under the law, not plunder of one for the benefit of another.  If the state of Kentucky is to operate in a just manner, then it must treat all businesses alike and treat all individuals alike, neither plundering the disfavored nor handing out the plundered loot to the favored.  If the state were not in the business of plundering us, and if it created a business-friendly climate in which taxes were low and property rights were respected, then businesses would grow naturally throughout the state.  A factory like Hyundai might choose to locate here for the long term because of the good environment, not because of a one-time bribe.  A state that respected its people and their businesses would be a prosperous state, with job opportunities for everyone.  If large projects came to the state, they would come when land owners voluntarily sold their property to the factory builders, not when the state threatened to use the power of eminent domain to take away the property by force if they refused to sell.  And there would be many smaller, very healthy business enterprises throughout the state, funded with the money that is now being extracted from us by force.

What is consistent in the policy of this state is that the government officials want to be in charge.  Our elected officials and bureaucrats do not trust the enterprising people of Kentucky to create and run productive enterprises or to attract outside capital investments.  Instead, they want to extract our money by force and decide how to spend it “for our benefit”.  They want to take away our property rights and control the use of our land “for our benefit”.  They want to brag about attracting large businesses like Hyundai to the state “for our benefit” even as they are strangling smaller, home-grown businesses in order to obtain the money to pay the bribes “for our benefit”.  After looking around the world at the failures of Russia, China, and other central-planning countries, and after looking back through history to the fall of the Roman Empire, you would think we would all understand by now that central economic planning and government control of property do not work.  Furthermore, if we take a quick glance at the ten commandments that are now forbidden to be posted in public places, we can see that the state’s approach is clearly immoral, involving the coveting of other people’s property and the theft of that property.  But I guess we should appreciate the willingness of our state officials to take on all these sins, since, no doubt, it is all being done “for our benefit”. 

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