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Surrounded by Brevard County officials and reporters, Gov. Rick Scott stood in an empty field at Kennedy Space Center where a satellite factory soon will rise.

The plant, being built by OneWeb Satellites, is a project that President-elect Donald Trump touted as an exemplar of American job creation. The company has raised nearly $2 billion from investors, including a Japanese technology conglomerate.

OneWeb, a new company, is going to be hiring 3,000 people, so thats very exciting, Trump told reporters at the Mar-a-Lago Club in December.

OneWeb is not the only emerging player on the Space Coast.Across the street, construction crews bustled at a massive rocket factory being built by Blue Origin, a company launched by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.

Both high-tech ventures are recipients of subsidies negotiated by Enterprise Florida, the public-private partnership that serves as the states economic development agency and an entity that suddenly is the subject of an intense ideological debate among Republicans in Tallahassee.

OneWeb, Blue Origin and other high-paying employers wouldnt be here if it werent for Enterprise Florida, Scott said during Thursdays event.

Scott, a second-term governor, has made job creation the focus of his six years in office, and he routinely lobbies the Legislature for more money for jobs subsidies. In recent years, lawmakers have pushed back, approving less for incentives than Scott requested.

Now, the Legislature is in full revolt. The state House this month voted 87-28 to abolish Enterprise Florida. Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran has hammered jobs incentives as corporate welfare and de facto socialism, and many in the Legislature seem to agree.

This is not where we should be spending other peoples money, said Rep. Paul Renner, a Palm Coast Republican who sponsored the bill to kill Enterprise Florida, according to the News Service of Florida. There are better, higher uses for that money, whether its public safety, whether its quality education, or infrastructure.

During Scotts appearance Thursday at Kennedy Space Center, the governor touted Floridas robust job growth and low taxes and he griped about lawmakers vote.

Im really frustrated with my Legislature, Scott told reporters.

The battle between Scott and Corcoran is a rare example of opponents attacking the governor from the right. Scott was a political novice when he swept into office during the Tea Party wave of 2010, and he has hewed to conservative positions on taxes, regulation, gun control and the death penalty.

Scott also has been a strong advocate for job incentives, which he considers an investment rather than a subsidy. State taxpayers get a fivefold return on incentives, Scott said, an estimate critics say is overly optimistic.

Without subsidies, Scott said, OneWeb Satellites would be building its factory somewhere else. Brian Holz, chief executive of OneWeb Satellites, agreed with Scotts assessment.

We looked at seven other states besides Florida, and they were all very competitive in terms of incentives, Holz said.

The company also entertained offers from four other countries. In the end, OneWeb took Floridas package of $20 million in incentives in exchange for promising to hire 250 workers.

I can tell you we didnt choose it for the beaches, Holz said. Even though theyre really nice.

Scott worries that killing Enterprise Florida would mean letting other states win economic development prizes like OneWeb. But critics of jobs incentives say theyre not swayed by the everyone-is-doing-it argument.

Its not in the best interests of taxpayers to take their money and give it to private companies, said Andres Malave, spokesman for Americans for Prosperity Florida, a group that has been pressing state leaders to end incentives. Its a matter of my tax dollars, your tax dollars, being straight-up given to someone else.

Paying subsidies directly to large employers grants an unfair competitive advantage for recipients, Malave said. He suggested devoting the money to schools, roads and police instead.

If lawmakers kill Enterprise Florida over Scotts objections, the state would honor the incentive contracts in place, Malave said. But companies shopping for future tax breaks would have to turn to county and municipal governments, which typically match a percentage of state subsidies.

If state jobs incentives were to disappear, the effects could hit especially hard in Palm Beach County, which has been the state champ in landing subsidies.

The county pulled in $425 million in state incentives from 1996 to 2013, according to a Palm Beach Post analysis of state data. Thats 42 percent of all state incentives paid to a county with just 7 percent of Floridas population.

The grand prize for Palm Beach County, of course, was a $310 million state grant to lure the Scripps Research Institute to Jupiter. But there have been other big payments, including $94.1 million to bring the renowned Max Planck Institute to Jupiter, $6.7 million to aerospace giant Pratt & Whitney, $2.7 million to struggling retailer Office Depot and $2 million to failed start-up DayJet.

By encouraging subsidies, Scott is following a precedent set by his Republican predecessors in the governors mansion. Jeb Bush personally wooed Scripps and spearheaded the states billion-dollar bet on biotech.

Bush promised the nonprofit biotech labs would create tens of thousands of private-sector spinoff jobs. That bonanza has yet to materialize, helping to set the stage for the Republican revolt against subsidies.

And Charlie Crist signed off on a $20 million incentive package for Digital Domain Media Group, the Port St. Lucie-based movie effects venture that crashed and burned. Enterprise Florida didnt grant incentives for Digital Domain, but Corcoran has made that companys collapse part of his pitch to kill the agency.

As for OneWeb, the company has raised $1.7 billion from a blue-chip list of investors that includes Japanese tech giant SoftBank, Qualcomm, Coca-Cola Co. and the Virgin Group.

OneWeb itself expects peak employment of 1,200 employees, many of them at its new factory at Kennedy Space Center, although Scott mentioned only the 250 jobs called for in the states agreement with OneWeb. Add in employment from suppliers of solar panels and other equipment, and total employment related to the satellite system could reach 3,000, OneWeb said.

Americans for Prosperitys Malave said he wishes OneWeb well in its goal of launching hundreds of satellites, but he says its ridiculous for a private company to receive a $20 million boost from taxpayers.

Thats not the role of government, Malave said.

Originally posted here:
Smart bet or socialism: Is satellite firm touted by Trump both? - MyPalmBeachPost

Lifestyle DAVID PANNELL: Without Christian roots, capitalism and socialism would fail

DAVID PANNELL

Heres a question: Which is better socialism or free enterprise? Which seems more sensible? That the means of production, distribution and exchange should be owned and regulated by the community as a whole, or that a society of free agents should compete for them?

Before I go any further, and before you report me to the authorities as a socialist sympathizer, let me say for the record I am not a socialist, nor am I trying to persuade you to become one.

Like most Americans, I would naturally say free enterprise is better. I personally prefer, on grounds both practical and ideological, the idea of free individuals having control over their own lives.

Yet I think its a question that deserves a fresh and fair hearing in the times we live in, from a Christian perspective.

A strong case could be made for free enterprise by pointing out that socialism tends to take away personal initiative and responsibility. Or one could simply point out the obvious historical failures of socialism. Some who have lived long enough to remember the deprivations of socialists regimes of the last century would answer, without hesitation, that for all its problems, free enterprise is better, both ideologically and practically.

Others, looking at the more recent prosperity and well-being of people living in Northern Europe, especially Scandinavia, would say with equal fervor that socialism is better.

They would correctly point out that in a competitive system like free enterprise, there will be winners and losers. Some will have more than they need and others will not have enough.

To be fair, it could be said by many measures, the quality of life for the average person in those countries is better than in a society built on a model of competition.

We Americans rightly argue the free enterprise system is rooted in a Judeo/Christian work ethic based on personal responsibility.

People living in Scandinavian countries with socialist governments would rightly argue their form of government is rooted in the Christian ideals of compassion, sharing, and mutual care.

If both free enterprise and socialism have roots that can be traced, at least in part, to Christianity, then whos right?

You could only say it would depend on your definition of a good society, and good and reasonable people would disagree on that definition.

Ive made my peace with the question, and my imperfect answer is Im a Christian who believes in free enterprise.

But as a Christian, I am troubled by the ever-widening chasm between modern free enterprise and its Judeo/Christian underpinnings. Without its Christian tradition to guide it and place compassionate limits on it, free enterprise will descend into savagery.

As a person of faith, steeped in the tradition of both personal responsibility and care for the weak, I see merits for both systems.

As an observer of modern culture, I shudder to think of the world we will bequeath to the future. Both socialism and capitalism, severed from their ethical taproots in Christianity, will be disastrous.

Neither, I fear, will bear much similarity to the ideal of the good society formed in the wake of Jesus exemplary life and described in the book of Acts: local, joyful, organic sharing; intentional simplicity of heart and life; and at its core, a nobler vision of communal life, driven not by fear of scarcity or desire for control, but by love itself, which, in the midst of our frantic striving, I fear we have forgotten to even want.

David Pannell describes himself as a recovering farmer and a retired preacher.

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DAVID PANNELL: Without Christian roots, capitalism and socialism would fail - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

Over at The Corner, Ericka Andersen writes: "More and more liberal Americans are embracing socialism. Unfortunately, it seems many of them arent aware of the realities that citizens in countries like Venezuela face."

That got me curious. Is it true that more and more liberal Americans are embracing socialism? I couldn't find a whole lot on the subject, but Gallup has asked a few times recently whether people have a positive image of socialism. And in 2015 they asked whether people would vote for a socialist. Here are the results:

This isn't much. Maybe ANES has some longer-term trends on this? Still, the Gallup polls don't suggest any overall recent warming toward socialism. If liberals really are getting seduced by the red menace, some other group must be making up for it.

So what's going on? A few recent polls have gotten a lot of attention for reporting that millennials prefer socialism to capitalism, but I doubt they really mean much. For one thing, we have no idea if this is anything new. For another, millennials polled in 2016 probably figured that socialist meant "Bernie Sanders." But Bernie's no socialist, no matter what he calls himself.1 He's a European-style social democrat, just like me.

If I hear millennials starting to talk about nationalizing the banks and having the feds take over the steel mills, then it might be time to wonder what's going on. Until then, I think the answer is: nothing.

1I don't know what he believes in his heart of hearts, of course. In practice, however, he's a pretty standard issue social democrat. So are lots of American liberals. Bernie is just more vocal about getting there right now than most of them. That's one of the benefits of having a safe seat in Vermont.

See the article here:
Is Socialism On the Rise? | Mother Jones - Mother Jones

Forbes

Congratulations To Bolivarian Socialism - Brownies Are Now Illegal In Venezuela Forbes This might cause a little confusion for in some parts of the world "Brownies" means a certain junior age group of Girl Guides or as we might these days call them Scouts of the female persuasion. Sure, we could imagine Maduro and the Chavistas trying to ... Venezuela has a bread shortage. The government has decided bakers are the problem.Miami Herald Short of options, Venezuela opposition stages flash protestsStabroek News all 71 news articles »

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Congratulations To Bolivarian Socialism - Brownies Are Now Illegal In Venezuela - Forbes

While the Democratic party continues to fail to meet even the lowest bar set by Progressives, it appears that the runoff from one of the two main parties in the U.S. may be headed straight for the Democratic Socialists of America.

Democratic Socialism, the technical political belief that Senator Bernie Sanders subscribes to, has seen their membership triple in the last yearto close to 20,000 card-carrying, dues-paying members.

And though many on the right may be terrified, DSAunderstands completely why they are growing: young people & Bernie.

Increasingly, much to the terror of the far right, socialism, is no longer considered the horrific word it once was to millinnials, expecially those who heard the term used to describe Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primary.

Young Americas tame view of socialism is due, in part, to a more true understanding of the meaning of the word, as well as the more moderate stance of Democratic Socialists. This is especially true in regards to Democratic Socialism because it is much different and far less radical than outright socialism.

On the basic level, as the DSA explains on their website, Democratic Socialists do not want the government to own the means of production. Instead, the DSA actively fights against capitalistic overreach, pushing back against mammoth corporations and their deep involvement with government. The DSA asks that government step in when corporations have gone too far, in order to protect consumers and keep things fair.

Democratic Socialists favor a sharing of ownership over consumer-good industries. Your local coop is a good example of Democratic Socialism in practice.

But to Republicans like Stuart Varney, Democratic Socialists are just good, old-fashioned commies.The worst nightmare for the right would be for young Bernie-backing Democrats to continue calling themselves Democratic Socialists.

Fortunately for the Democratic party, Democratic Socialists do not consider themselves wholly apart from the Democratic party. Much like how Senator Sanders ran as a Democrat in the primary, members of the DSA continue to work for and contribute toward the Democratic party, working to spread their goals from within.

If the Democratic party is willing to make room, the addition of Democratic Socialists appear to be only a net good for the floundering political party.

The rest is here:
As Dem Enthusiasm Lags, Democratic Socialists Of America See Memberships Triple - The Ring of Fire Network