Governor Sanford is right to oppose tax incentives for sporting goods retailer, Cabela’s. The creation of a few service sector jobs and a very minor tourist ‘destination’ is not nearly enough to validate the tax incentive plan passed by the South Carolina legislature.
It would be a different matter if state and local officials were wooing Cabela’s to move their corporate headquarters to South Carolina. That would have a definite positive impact on South Carolina’s economy. But that is not the case here. What we have here is our own state legislature offering state money to a company based in Nebraska so that they can come here, open a large retail outlet stocked with goods mainly imported from outside South Carolina, and take the profits to a state far from our own.
This is hardly good business and far from good governing.
Now I have never been inside a Cabela’s, though I have driven by a few, and they certainly are a spectacle to the eye from the freeway. As a sportsman I’m sure I would welcome a sporting goods store of that caliber to the state. But I am just as sure that offering tax incentives to a box retailer whose corporate offices are in another state is a step in the wrong direction. The legislation should be immediately repealed and Cabela’s executives politely told that we welcome them to the state if they want to do business here, but that South Carolinians are not interested in paying a company based in Nebraska to open a retail outlet here.
I look forward to shopping at the new Cabela’s after they look at the numbers and see that they will be profitable here without taking a handout from our state.
