Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of success can be attributed to simply showing up. The General Assembly has developed a similar approach when it comes to passing out taxpayer-funded business incentives.

Sitting on Gov. Mike Easley's desk is a bill that would create the Job Maintenance and Capital Development Fund. If the governor signs it, North Carolina essentially tells businesses that the only requirement for taxpayer subsidies is that they open their doors.

The bill could be renamed the "Goodyear, Please Don't Go Act of 2007." It would funnel $40 million over 10 years to Goodyear Tire and Rubber as an enticement to keep open its Fayetteville plant, which provides 2,750 great-paying jobs in Cumberland County. Rob Schofield of N.C. Policy Watch pegs the average salary and benefits at $90,000 per year.

Goodyear would also snag an additional $10 million to help pay its electric bill, and $4.4 million in cash grants from the city of Fayetteville and Cumberland County. Another sweetener is $2.6 million worth of community college training for its workers. All told, Elaine Mejia, director of the N.C. Budget and Tax Center, values the Goodyear package at $57 million.

To qualify, Goodyear must invest $200 million in plant upgrades between now and Jan. 1, 2012. That's a significant requirement, but what has Mejia and policy analysts across the political spectrum howling is that Goodyear doesn't have to add jobs at the plant. It can even lay off workers or replace them with lower-wage private contract employees and still get public money.

This is a dangerous precedent that could explode North Carolina's already burgeoning corporate welfare programs, better known as economic incentives. If the General Assembly and Easley say yes to Goodyear, how can they say no to Bridgestone Tire in Wilson County, or Gates Rubber in Ashe County if -- more likely, when -- those companies' legislative champions bring forth bills benefiting them?

The arguments would be plausible, because the companies face the same pressures confronting Goodyear. If legislators and the governor are intellectually honest, they won't be able to say no to these or other businesses that push for state, county and city subsidies under the guise of keeping jobs in North Carolina.

The worst part of the Goodyear corporate welfare bill is that it represents outdated thinking. Taxpayer subsidies never save jobs. They only delay the inevitable market changes that include decline, demise and, ultimately, economic transformation. The market has a much better record of spurring growth than legislatures do. Above all, the market rewards innovation and creativity, even in economic incentives.

Wake County commissioners are currently teaching that lesson. Developer John Kane initially approached them for $75 million in Tax Increment Financing bonds to build parking structures for his North Hills East project. Commission Chairman Tony Gurley told me that commissioners don't like TIF bonds, so they developed an alternative that allows Kane to use his own taxes to pay off a privately financed parking deck. Every other Wake County taxpayer would be off the hook.

The alternative is called Synthetic Project Development Financing. It's complicated, but this is how I understand it would work:

A baseline valuation of North Hills East property would be established. Kane pegs that number at $125 million. He would pay full taxes on that valuation. However, since he intends to improve the property well beyond $125 million, which the county sees as a benefit, Kane would get back 75 percent of taxes paid beyond the valuation that exceeds $125 million. He would agree to use that money to pay off the parking deck loan.

This deal would be in effect for 20 years. After that, Wake County would collect 100 percent of the taxes on the property's full value, which Kane estimates will be $792 million, a net gain of $667 million in value to the county tax rolls.

This deal is so good for taxpayers that the county commissioners gave it unanimous support in a straw poll. The City of Raleigh still needs to endorse the plan, but the innovative approach is proof that economic development doesn't require simply giving corporations taxpayer money.

For that reason alone, Easley should veto the Goodyear Tire legislation.

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