<story><title>AT&amp;T promised 7k new jobs to get tax break, cut 23k jobs instead</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/att-promised-7000-new-jobs-to-get-tax-break-it-cut-23000-jobs-instead/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>This article and your assertion are a really good example of how falsehoods become an unquestioned part of the accepted narrative. AT&amp;amp;T never &amp;quot;promised to create a &lt;i&gt;net&lt;/i&gt; 7,000&amp;quot; jobs. The article admits as much: it quotes AT&amp;amp;T&amp;#x27;s CEO as saying that AT&amp;amp;T would invest an additional $1 billion, which is equivalent to 7,000 jobs. The article &lt;i&gt;never analyzes the truth of that claim.&lt;/i&gt; It never determines whether AT&amp;amp;T actually invested that money. (In fact, AT&amp;amp;T is in the middle of a big push to deploy more fiber: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cordcuttersnews.com&amp;#x2F;att-plans-to-expand-fiber-internet-to-14-million-locations-by-mid-2019.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cordcuttersnews.com&amp;#x2F;att-plans-to-expand-fiber-in...&lt;/a&gt;) Instead, the article points to completely unrelated layoffs that resulted from a merger. (There was also the question of who exactly this &amp;quot;promise&amp;quot; was made to. The article quotes Stephenson&amp;#x27;s comments in a speech to the Economic Club of New York, not any sort of filing to the government.)&lt;p&gt;The same is true for the &amp;quot;promise to build out a fiber optic network.&amp;quot; AT&amp;amp;T never &amp;quot;promised&amp;quot; to do that. The arguments at the time were that deregulation would lead to higher investment into things like broadband. What nobody anticipated at the time was that the mobile revolution would happen, and all that new capital would be redirected to building wireless networks instead. That doesn&amp;#x27;t make the original claim a misrepresentation. And from a practical standpoint, it&amp;#x27;s better that all this money got invested in mobile instead of building FTTH.</text></item><item><author>lovich</author><text>Did anyone really expect anything different? These are the same companies who took tax breaks in return for a promise to build out a fiber optic network and then never did it while pocketing the money.&lt;p&gt;At this point AT&amp;amp;T and their peers aren&amp;#x27;t fucking society, we are actively asking them to</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lovich</author><text>Yea, you&amp;#x27;re right. AT&amp;amp;T never promised those jobs. They just kept talking about all the jobs that would be made if the tax cut happened. That was the main argument when they tax cuts came up, all the job that would be created. But yea, no one made an actual promise.&lt;p&gt;The reason people are upset is the same reason no one likes talking to lawyer, and why no one wants to deal with corporate or political leaders who need to be talked to like a genie to make sure your wish doesn&amp;#x27;t get twisted around.&lt;p&gt;If the response to this event and to the fiber optic debacle is &amp;quot;wElL tEcHniCalLy We DiDnT pRoMiSe&amp;quot; then why should any tax breaks be considered in the future for any company? What is the reason to believe any statement about the benefits that will come through if we could just release these poor corporate giants from their terrible tax burden, if experience shows that they never come through?</text></comment>
<story><title>AT&amp;T promised 7k new jobs to get tax break, cut 23k jobs instead</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/att-promised-7000-new-jobs-to-get-tax-break-it-cut-23000-jobs-instead/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>This article and your assertion are a really good example of how falsehoods become an unquestioned part of the accepted narrative. AT&amp;amp;T never &amp;quot;promised to create a &lt;i&gt;net&lt;/i&gt; 7,000&amp;quot; jobs. The article admits as much: it quotes AT&amp;amp;T&amp;#x27;s CEO as saying that AT&amp;amp;T would invest an additional $1 billion, which is equivalent to 7,000 jobs. The article &lt;i&gt;never analyzes the truth of that claim.&lt;/i&gt; It never determines whether AT&amp;amp;T actually invested that money. (In fact, AT&amp;amp;T is in the middle of a big push to deploy more fiber: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cordcuttersnews.com&amp;#x2F;att-plans-to-expand-fiber-internet-to-14-million-locations-by-mid-2019.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cordcuttersnews.com&amp;#x2F;att-plans-to-expand-fiber-in...&lt;/a&gt;) Instead, the article points to completely unrelated layoffs that resulted from a merger. (There was also the question of who exactly this &amp;quot;promise&amp;quot; was made to. The article quotes Stephenson&amp;#x27;s comments in a speech to the Economic Club of New York, not any sort of filing to the government.)&lt;p&gt;The same is true for the &amp;quot;promise to build out a fiber optic network.&amp;quot; AT&amp;amp;T never &amp;quot;promised&amp;quot; to do that. The arguments at the time were that deregulation would lead to higher investment into things like broadband. What nobody anticipated at the time was that the mobile revolution would happen, and all that new capital would be redirected to building wireless networks instead. That doesn&amp;#x27;t make the original claim a misrepresentation. And from a practical standpoint, it&amp;#x27;s better that all this money got invested in mobile instead of building FTTH.</text></item><item><author>lovich</author><text>Did anyone really expect anything different? These are the same companies who took tax breaks in return for a promise to build out a fiber optic network and then never did it while pocketing the money.&lt;p&gt;At this point AT&amp;amp;T and their peers aren&amp;#x27;t fucking society, we are actively asking them to</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>Which explains nicely why tax &amp;quot;loopholes&amp;quot; are much better at achieving the desired result than tax &amp;quot;breaks.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;In the former, the tax burden is reduced in exchange for specific actions by the taxpayer. For example you give AT&amp;amp;T the option to file for a reduction in their taxes in proportion to their investment in new fiber, or in proportion to the number of &amp;quot;hard hat&amp;quot; jobs they create. In the latter, you simply cut their taxes and take their word for it that the result will achieve your policy goals because they said it might.&lt;p&gt;The over arching message, that cutting taxes as a way of putting more money into the working man&amp;#x27;s hands, is false on its face remains true. Even the folks who &lt;i&gt;invented&lt;/i&gt; trickle down economics say that.[1]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;posteverything&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;28&amp;#x2F;i-helped-create-the-gop-tax-myth-trump-is-wrong-tax-cuts-dont-equal-growth&amp;#x2F;?utm_term=.1bcdd986d865&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;posteverything&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;0...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>