Remember, U.S. Steel deals in the folding money

Just a friendly reminder, the biggest investor of new capital into the Iron Range economy this year will not be Essar Global, Excelsior Energy, Wal-Mart or even the Pabst brewing company. No, the most new money will come from U.S. Steel, which is dropping a smooth $350 million to restart an old line at Keewatin Taconite. It’s worth pointing out the things that are real and the things that are proposed or even imaginary.

Furthermore, U.S. Steel will pay full taconite taxes on the pellets they ship off this new line, creating more revenue for local communities. They didn’t need fancy new tax breaks to make this expansion happen. They simply needed the ore in the ground and the permits required to mine it. What’s the lesson? Healthy economies involve private companies making financially sound decisions (yes, with government assistance and common sense regulation) but not government financing or policies that sell out people who do the actual work and live in the actual towns. I’m not trying to be a booster for U.S. Steel, just pointing out some basic economic facts that seem to elude people around here. We’ve got to figure out a way to spend our economic development dollars in a way that kick starts independent, diversified growth because we just can’t afford to try to build massive “jobs factories” into the distant future.

Comments

  1. Anonymous says

    Dead on, Aaron. I could not agree more.

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