A story I hope to work on today (if I quit wasting my time blogging) is a follow-up to this Gazette piece by Tom Howard. Whatever liberal tendencies I may have don't go so far as to embrace the notion that government should be involved in handing out economic incentives to attract new businesses. For one thing, it's a dubious use of taxpayers' money. For another, it distorts the free market, forcing it to function less efficiently by introducing artificial incentives that aren't related to sound business practices. For a third, it gives unfair advantages to some companies at the expense of others. For a fourth, it seems inconsistent with the limited government the founding fathers envisioned.

Having said all that, I still understand why the Big Sky Economic Development Authority would see the need to try to lure a Bresnan Communications operations center to Billings. That's what BSEDA does. But I can't understand why the federal government would have an interest in providing a $500,000 appropriation to make that happen. Surely, from a federal standpoint, this is a zero-sum game. Whatever jobs the center might provide in Billings are jobs that won't go somewhere else. The total number of jobs, and the benefits those jobs provide, are exactly the same no matter where it goes. So outside of providing a political benefit to a well connected Republican senator, what's the point?

UPDATE: J.P. Donovan of Sen. Burns' office here says that the $500,000 appropriation is part of the VA-HUD budget designated for economic development in rural states. The idea, he says, is to give rural areas a more level playing field when competing for business relocations. The appropriation, should it pass the full Senate and survive conference committee, would go directly to BSEDA to use as it sees fit for economic development. If BSEDA chooses to spend it on Bresnan, that's its business.

Not sure that information changes my critique any, but there it is.