For example, a $10 million dollar road extension was built here in my county to accommodate a large energy company which said they were going to build a plant there, and they requested county taxpayers build the road. In exchange, 50 new jobs would be created.
I didn't see it as a great deal, anyway, but it really turned bad after the road was built and the company changed their mind.
They should have to pay for that new road to nowhere. They owe the taxpayers $10 million. Very simple example.
Now, a long-existing plant wants to leave a community and go overseas. Okay, but first, they must pay for the infrastructure they were using, that now will not be paid for in tax revenues. The costs of all transport to and from that plant, the educations of all the employees, the demolition and restoration of the plant area to its natural state, the expense of replacing those jobs and so on. THEIR decision made all those problems, so they should have to pay for them, in cash. It's the old, "you break it, you buy it" rule. Common sense, nothing radical, although you will hear caterwauling like unto people being boiled in oil.
As of now, they simple privatize all profits and socialize all losses.
HOW to convince the voters to not listen to all the astroturf and contrived ads about "YOU were gonna be rich some day, but not now" and "this is communism" and "this will destroy jobs", I don't know. They hold a large megaphone available on demand.
But just like a divorce where a relationship goes bad, there is a division of property, awards of support and alimony, temporary payments, custody decisions, there needs to be a settling of accounts when a business begins or ends it presence.
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