The auto companies are particularly good at the incentives game because they can offer relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs that don’t require four-year college degrees. Remember that G.M. pioneered the auction approach in 1985 when it ran a national beauty contest for a site to produce its new Saturn brand cars. Spring Hill, Tenn., was the winner, and agreed to cough up decades of tax revenues. The United Autoworkers agreed to reduced wages. (“Today’s Jobs at Yesterday’s Wages,” declaimed one headline.) Saturn production died in the downturn, and Spring Hill’s manufacturing lines were closed in 2009. They reopened in 2012 after, yes, more concessions from Tennessee. To be continued?

For a corporation looking to move, site selection specialists are good at identifying multiple locations that can meet their needs. Amazon’s search for a second headquarters sent economic development agencies around the country into peak insanity. The reality, though, Ms. Liu said, is that most job creation comes from the expansion of existing companies and from start-ups, not by luring companies from other locations .

Still, the game goes on. In 2015, the conglomerate Honeywell got a $40 million, 10-year tax credit from New Jersey ( Chris Christie , proprietor) to induce it to remain based in Morris Plains, N.J. But Honeywell will soon be based instead in Charlotte, N.C. — after getting $46 million to grease the move south, plus added incentives that could amount to as much as $16,000 per job. North Carolina is so hungry for corporate headquarters that its legislature passed a bill that directly underwrites Honeywell’s move. Honeywell, which says it will keep enough jobs in New Jersey to continue qualifying for the credit, is also moving jobs to Charlotte from South Carolina, which h ad used incentives in the past to grab them from other states.

In leaving metropolitan New York for Charlotte, Honeywell cited the ability to recruit talent, which is, oddly enough, the same reason Amazon cited to choose metropolitan New York, in the form of Queens, for its HQ2. That, and as much as $3 billion in incentives.

In announcing the move, Honeywell’s chief executive, Darius Adamczyk, tried to smooth any ruffled feathers in the Garden State, saying his decision “does not reflect any issues with the quality of our experience in New Jersey … New Jersey will remain a substantial employment center for us.”

Of course it will, until a better offer comes along. And that’s exactly the problem with our corporate welfare system. Companies like G.M. know that if they dangle a new plant like a piece of meat — perhaps the one that will make autonomous vehicles — the political and economic development dogs will come running. And they will always find lawmakers ready to provide tax breaks with a wispy hope that they will make everyone’s life better.

Like G.M., they’ll behave as if the Lordstown plant never existed. And soon, it might not.

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