Distorted by ideology

Regarding your April 23 interview ("Incentives distort capitalism") with Bob Orr, director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, what's really distorted is his view on business recruitment and his assertion that he means no harm to the state's ability to recruit jobs. His belief that we can compete without incentives harkens back to another era and ignores substantial evidence that our ability to recruit was diminishing before we became serious about incentives.

Competition for jobs is intense. It's imperative that North Carolina remains competitive regionally, nationally and globally. Over the years our state has done a good job fine-tuning our incentives program. Incentives are based on performance-based contracts. With such a prudent approach, the benefits to employees, families and our economy far exceed the costs.

We must keep the state competitive in order to create jobs and ensure economic growth reaches all North Carolinians. The General Assembly has confirmed on numerous occasions the public policy that incentives should be used to recruit new jobs. Based on his comments, Orr is willing to put future job opportunities at risk for working people to further his ideological agenda.

Scott Millar

President, N.C. Economic Developers Association

Hickory