Dick Harpootlian isn’t finished with questions about the Carolina Panthers’ $115 million tax break.
The ex-prosecutor and senator who represents the Irmo area said lawmakers fast-tracked …
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Dick Harpootlian isn’t finished with questions about the Carolina Panthers’ $115 million tax break.
The ex-prosecutor and senator who represents the Irmo area said lawmakers fast-tracked Panthers’ billionaire owner David Tepper’s deal with too few details about its value.
Although he advised them not to, his colleagues voted 25-17 to give the Charlotte-based National Football League team $115 million in tax breaks to build a new Rock Hill headquarters.
House and Senate members must work out differences in the bill’s 2 versions.
The Panthers have said they will buy 200 acres in SC for a complex modeled on the Dallas Cowboys’ headquarters and training site in Frisco, TX, with:
• An orthopedic sports medicine center with about 200 employees.
• A 150-room hotel and conference center to attract corporate headquarters and housing developments.
The Dallas Cowboys headquarters in Frisco, TX, has a 91-acre campus with a state-of-the-art, 12,000-seat indoor multi-use event center for athletic, entertainment and private events.
For the Panthers, the state will finance a $40 million interchange on I-77 with $20 million in federal dollars, $12.5 million from state taxpayers and $7.5 million from the city of Rock Hill.
Skeptical senators asked why their constituents should be forced to finance tax breaks for only a small region of the state.
Others asked why they should offer tax breaks to a team whose owner is worth more than $11 billion.
Harpootlian asked:
• Republican senators how they will explain to their constituents “this corporate welfare to benefit a single corporation and its billionaire owner.”
• Fellow Democrats how they will explain “why one billionaire received a $40 million infrastructure project and $115 million in tax giveaways when so many of our most vulnerable citizens’ needs remain unaddressed.”
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