Not satisfied with record-breaking industrial growth, Kansas Department of Commerce officials announced Tuesday they’re ready to go for more.
On Tuesday, Paul Hughes, deputy secretary for business development for the KDOC, briefed lawmakers on nine potential projects worth billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.
This is on the heels of Panasonic’s $4 billion electric vehicle battery plant that’s started construction in De Soto, the massive military microchip operation that’s in the beginning stages in Coffey County and Manhattan’s multi-million dollar expansion to semiconductor manufacturer Radiation Detection Technologies, Inc.
NOT SO FAST, warned Rep. Sean Tarwater, chair of the House Commerce, Labor and Economic Development Committee.
“We’re gonna have to make a pretty big case,” for Kansas to continue providing incentives to lure industry this way, the Stillwell Republican said, adding that the committee’s conservative makeup naturally makes it skeptical of such tactics.
While we can appreciate Tarwater’s due diligence, we would argue that conservatism and economic development are not mutually exclusive.
A robust economy is surely something for which all legislators should strive. And being a good steward of the economy would certainly include seeing that it continues on a pro-growth trajectory.
TAKING THE LONG view is critical to successful economic development and the necessary investment.
Awarding $829 million in APEX — Attracting Powerful Economic Expansion — incentives to entice Panasonic to settle in Kansas will pay off many times over in the long run.
Coffey County’s microchip operation, named the Kansas Semiconductor Manufacturing Consortium, is currently projected as a $2.5 billion endeavor, but could be bigger or smaller depending on state and federal grants.
Key is the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act signed enacted last August, whose goal is to ramp up domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors to better position the U.S. against foreign competition, mainly from China.
Coffey County’s project, awarded last fall, is a public-private partnership that includes Flint Hills Technical College and multiple industries that deal in high-end technology including semiconductor components.
Flint Hills president Caron Daugherty says the Emporia college will help groom a compatible workforce for the industry through its industrial engineering, welding, computer program design and network technology classes.
IT’S WHEN entities work together, not in individual silos, that economic development works best.
The bootstrap mentality that a city, county or even state will live or die by its singular efforts is self-defeating. Modern conservatives understand that a role of government is to invest its wealth back into communities, benefiting citizens with strategic investments.
