BuckeyeBlog

Governor Strickland wants the state to review whether an agreement between DHL and UPS would violate anti-trust laws. It seems that his main issue is not whether the agreement would be good for consumers or whether it would really be anti-competitive, but instead is aimed at pressuring DHL to keep using facilities in the Wilmington area that employ around 6,000 people. And how does Strickland justify this move? “I think DHL has an obligation to the community and to the state, because we have tried to work in such a way as to be good partners,” he says.

He is referring to this:

The Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority in March 2007 sold $270 million in bonds to support DHL’s expansion and upgrading of the Wilmington hub in recent years. That requires DHL to repay the bonds over 40 years, which would put pressure on the company to find a new use for the one-million-square-foot Wilmington sorting facility and airport if jobs are lost there and it generates less revenue, said Ron Parker, the port authority’s executive director.

So the port authority gave some welfare to DHL and now the Governor is using that to justify pressuring DHL into keeping a (possibly) unaffordable and inefficient cargo operation open? While I deplore the governor’s use of his office’s power to strong-arm DHL or any company, I have a little less sympathy for DHL because of its acceptance of a government handout to fund its expansion. After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Companies that seek handouts from the government (financed using your tax dollars) should expect opportunistic government officials to meddle even more in their affairs than is normal.

Tags: Corporate Welfare, Democrats

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 5:34 pm and is filed under Economic Freedom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.