Once more Delaware taxpayer money is being squandered on the altar of corporate greed. The latest gift to another obscenely wealthy banking conglomerate was approved Monday morning by Delaware’s Council on Development Finance as recommended by the secretive Delaware Prosperity Partnership. The bitter irony is that the approval vote was taken on the morning of the very day that the House was to vote on the Bond Bill. The Bond Bill contained an additional $14.3 million allocation to replenish Delaware’s corporate slush fund.
Even more outrageous in this recent escapade of corporate welfare is the reality that Barclays had recently moved 500 higher paying jobs primarily related to operations and technology from their Wilmington site. Today’s $2.5 million approved grant of taxpayer money would bring 323 new customer service employees the majority expected to make about $32,000 a year. It should be obvious even to the most dedicated corporate apologists in our government that a net loss of 200 jobs combined with a substantially lower pay rate for those new jobs is an abuse of the taxpayers trust.
Since the Bond Bill would add even more taxpayer money to be doled out to future corporate extortionists, I had to speak out and vote against the Bond Bill. My apologies to all Delaware taxpayers for the “silence of the lambs” acquiescence exhibited by their government.