CORPORATE BLACKMAIL OF COMMUNITIES

David Sirota, Open Left - Frontier [Airline] declared bankruptcy on April 10, 2008, ultimately got bought by Republic Airways in August of 2009, and has been reporting operating profit for 10 straight months (probably a big reason that Republic bought it, and Southwest tried to).

In recent weeks, however, Republic Airways has been threatening to slash Frontier jobs in Denver (the airline's hometown) unless Denver and Colorado governments hand the company a series of special tax breaks. . .

This particularly ugly threat comes, of course, just as the city and state's massive budget deficits are causing huge cuts to the most basic social services for the most vulnerable populations (the homeless, the indigent, the mentally ill, etc. . .

Either hand over the taxpayer cash, the airline is saying to the pols, or we'll slash jobs in a high-profile way, hurt your economy, and embarrass you. The standard reaction from politicians in this situation is to do what Denver and Colorado officials initially did by seeming to promise capitulation. . .

Of course, it rarely works out that way - what most often ends up happening is that the capitulation destroys tax revenue and - worst of all - the jobs that the tax breaks were chasing end up leaving anyway.