Corporate Welfare on steroids; Caterpillar takes taxpayer money to…create jobs? Welcome to the Republicans idea of Free Market.

While conservatives freak out over those coddled highly educated public employees who are picking the pockets of taxpayers, they’re just fine with picking their own pockets so huge profitable corporation can take their money for job creation. It’s sick alright. But don’t expect defensive conservative voters, who are more concerned with installing one party rule, to say anything that would jeopardize winning at all costs. Check out how big business is reaching deep into the public trough: 

NY Times: Some of Caterpillar’s newest factory workers are training … The primary beneficiary is undoubtedly Caterpillar, yet North Carolina is picking up much of the cost … $1 million to help nearly 400 workers …  and a community college has committed to develop a custom curriculum that Caterpillar has valued at about $4.3 million. Caterpillar is one of dozens of companies, many with growing profits and large cash reserves that have come to expect such largess from states in return for creating jobs.
 

You’ve heard it before, and it still sounds just as stupid, but we’re doing it for the “job creators.”

“The question is, why shouldn’t the company pay for this training?” asked Ross Eisenbrey, the vice president of the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s for their benefit.”

In North Carolina … people are still smarting from the departure of a Dell factory that put nearly 1,000 people out of work just five years after the state spent close to $2 million on training. The state is also paying to train workers for a new Honda Aircraft factory in Greensboro, an expanding Siemens plant in Charlotte and an existing call center in Winston-Salem for US Airways, which relocated 200 jobs from Manila last year … North Carolina spent about $9.4 million to train workers as part of projects that created nearly 4,500 jobs in the 12 months through June 30. (The total cost per job rises sharply beyond the $2,000 in training because of voluminous tax breaks and other incentives.)

But conservative voters love that rugged entrepreneurial spirit that it takes to ask for taxpayer money:

Business executives argue that government-subsidized training is a fair payoff given what the companies bring to the table. “At the end of the day we’re creating more jobs for the state of North Carolina,” said (the) director of operations at a Siemens gas and steam turbine plant in Charlotte that has received close to $1.2 million worth of training from the state for about 700 new workers. “There’s no doubt it’s a competitive process,” he added.

Ah, so that’s what the GOP and corporate CEO’s mean by being competitive; what corporate freeloader can get the most taxpayer money. Welcome to the free market and low wages. 

In a report last month, Good Jobs First, a nonprofit research organization that tracks such spending, found that states often attract companies that create few jobs, pay low wages or scrimp on health insurance.