EconoMeter: Should we subsidize breweries?
Roger Showley, U-T SAN DIEGO
Friday, April 25, 2014
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Kelly Cunningham, National University System
Answer: NO
While a community has the right to limit or influence industry within their jurisdictions given finite land and environmental impacts, political entities are ill equipped to pick winning and losing business ventures. The market -- consumers -- should determine business success or failure. Entrepreneurial efforts such as craft brewing may have desirable attributes and benefits to the overall economy, but it makes little sense for one business or industrial endeavor to be subsidized or favored over another. The far more functional approach is to lower regulations, ease land-use policies, lower taxes on all businesses to create jobs and generate real sustained prosperity.