IT DOESN'T SMELL RIGHT TO ME

I know that this is off topic but I really need to have my say on this topic because I have seen this happen too many times in too many places and it almost always ends up not benefiting anyone but the poor mega rich business that needs the incentive to do business.

How is paying Cabelas to set up a store here going to benefit the community? Generate new business? While it may attract some new business to town, most of its income will be taken from money that would have been spent at businesses already in town who didn't get all of the incentives that Cabelas will get. Seems like an unfair advantage to me. Where are all the free market advocates on this one? How many of those businesses will have to close?

New jobs? First of all other businesses will be laying off employees because Cabelas is siphoning off money that would have been spent in their stores. And those are all low paying retail jobs which will be at or below the poverty level. So the social costs of poverty will be picked up by the community. Once again subsidizing Cabelas.

Increased sales tax income. If they are simply taking business away from already existing businesses, there will be no increase in income to the city.

Property tax income? If we give them tifs to develope the land, that means that we are dedicating the property taxes to pay for the infrastructure that Cabelas should have paid for in the first place. Plus we loaned them the money in the first place. Wouldn't we be better off selling the land at market value, investing the proceeds and using the income to develope infrastructure and build a really solid future for the community.

Instead of Cabelas making an investment in our community, they think that we should be making an investment in them. Doesn't bode well for the well being or our community. They are telling us up front that they don't give a damn about Rapid City.

No they don't give a damn about anything but profit. They will suck profit out our community and send it off to another part of the country where it will probably be taxed, benefitting their home community, because we don't have a corporate tax here in South Dakota.

If they were coming into Rapid City and actually investing by building their facilities and setting up shop to compete on a level playing field, it would be different. But they are not. They've got us singing their tune. And when the song is done, we will all have laryngitis and they will be singing all the way to the bank.

The only people who stand to make out on this deal are the developers and the contractors who will actually do the work. Unless of course Cabelas brings in their own people from elswhere. The interesting part of all this is that the people who build it and make the money, won't be getting it from Cabelas. Because Cabelas has figured out a way to get us to foot the bill for it.

Cabelas and other big box stores don't create wealth. They suck it out of the communites in which they operate.

The part that I find incredible is that this is a staunchly Republican state. I thought Republicans were supposed to be all for the free market.