Abbott’s Move To Poach General Electric
by Polo Rocha
Gov. Greg Abbott acknowledges he isn’t the only governor trying to poach General Electric away from Connecticut, where the company is calling proposed tax increases “truly discouraging.”
But in a letter Wednesday to GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, Abbott highlighted the Legislature’s just-passed tax deal as one reason why the company should pick Texas.
The Tribune’s Patrick Svitek reports it is Abbott’s “latest effort to pick up where his jobs-poaching predecessor left off.”
In addition to touting Texas’ low-tax environment, Abbott plugged the state’s economic incentives programs and its commitment to educating its workers. Abbott made pre-kindergarten a priority throughout the session and last week signed into law a so-called Governor’s University Research Initiative that uses leftover money from a now-defunct incentives program to lure world-class scholars to Texas schools.
In Connecticut, GE has all but threatened to leave over a budget deal that would raise taxes on corporations and the state’s wealthiest residents. In a statement last week, the international conglomerate said the plan makes businesses like it “seriously consider whether it makes any sense to continue to be located in this state.”
Seth Martin, a spokesman for GE, said the company is evaluating whether it should move its headquarters but that it’s “too soon to comment further on the process.”
Connecticut’s governor, meanwhile, pushed back against Abbott’s request.
“Connecticut has one of the lowest — one of the lowest — effective corporate tax rates in America,” spokesman Devon Puglia said in a statement. “It’s that simple.”
Polo Rocha is a reporter for the Texas Tribune where this story originally published and reprinted here through a news partnership between the Texas Tribune and Corridor News.
