Should Philly taxes pay only Philly contractors?
Councilman Bill Green wants to block suburban businesses from city-funded jobs
Should Philly taxes pay only Philly contractors?
Joseph N. DiStefano
Philadelphia City Councilman Bill Green, D-at large, wants to certify Philadelphia-based businesses and give them preference in bidding city-funded jobs. Three bills introduced by Green today would:
- Require Philadelphia residents "perform 100% of the work hours" on all city competitively-bid contracts over $150,000 - "Private-party beneficiaries of public subsidies" must "interview Philadelphia residents first for all new, entry-level jobs" - Philadelphia will create a "Local Business Entity" list of "qualified applicants" for work on city jobs.
Comments (2)
I like Councilman Green's tax reform ideas, but this one doesn't cut the mustard. Reducing the number of businesses eligible to bid for city contracts will raise the cost of these project (restricting supply), implicitly raising the city's costs and tax burden. What happens when suburban governments retroactively impose similar preferences that disallow city businesses from bidding? This seems too zero-sum to work. We should be building our competitiveness as a region globally, not working against each other locally.— CoolZanna
Hopefully, contracts for milk products and copying machine paper will not come out of Fairmount Park agricultural enterprises.
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Joseph N. DiStefano blogs about the latest news in the Philadelphia business community and elsewhere. Contact him at 215-854-5194.
Reach Joseph N. at JoeD@phillynews.com.
Joseph N. DiStefano
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