Theft at the Public Till
workers, and all their support personnel. It costs billions of dollars a year to operate. It is America’s largest nonproductive business. It creates nothing. It makes nothing. It redirects creative energies away from innovation and job building to ever more sophisticated forms of paper shuffling. It drains money from the productive segments of the economy. It takes money from people who have little and gives it to those with much. It takes from the young and gives to the old. It takes from the thrifty who save and gives to speculators. It takes from some affluent people and gives to other affluent people. It takes from small and medium-sized companies and gives to mul- tinational corporations. It takes from U.S.-owned businesses and gives to foreign-owned businesses. Long ago, tax people discovered how to guar- antee a never ending supply of complexity, so that their jobs would last for ever and no one would ever understand what they were doing. After years devoted to “simplifying” the nation’s tax laws, they are more complex than ever. They are longer than ever. They take more people to interpret than ever. They cost more money to enforce than ever. They waste more money than ever. And they give rise to some of the worst cases of theft we’ve ever experienced. Let us go back a decade and consider the case of Northwest Airlines and its then (as now) ongoing struggles to avert bankruptcy. Northwest is important to Minnesota, so important that it could extract valuable dollars. The all important tactic: scare elected officials. Early in 1991, the airline disclosed that it was reviewing offers from other state and local govern- ments that wanted the maintenance base, which ultimately would employ 1,500 persons. Northwest said it was trying to decide on one of six areas-the Twin Cities; Duluth, also in Minnesota; Detroit; Memphis; Kansas City, Missouri; and Atlanta. Now the rush was on to see who would hand out the most tax breaks and loans. Minnesota officials scrambled to come up with an offer and push it through the legislature. In May 1991, state lawmakers approved a controver- sial $740 million package of tax breaks, government-backed loans, and cash for Northwest. The bill authorized the state to sell $350 million in revenue bonds to build an aircraft maintenance base in Duluth and an engine repair
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