The debate has exploded once again over the failed bill which would have added new employment level requirements to the 2013 aerospace tax incentive agreement. Last week the venue was the Seattle Times editorial pages. First up, labor advocates Jon Holden and Ryan Rule, who lament a 3.5 percent decrease in Boeing jobs since 2013, juxtaposed with what they characterize as “the largest corporate tax break in U.S. history.” However, important details went missing in their op-ed.

Many of those details were found in the aggressive rebuttal by Linda Lanham, former labor leader-turned-business advocate who appeared in the same pages two days later. She states that labor groups that had a major role in the coalition to achieve the incentive deal are now inconsistently central to the opposition. Lanham highlights Everett’s massive thousand worker construction project for the coveted 777X program, and how the tax incentives result in thousands of jobs for Washington.

Finally, the Times’s editorial board weighed in with support for Boeing, the aerospace industry, and the incentives, calculated by OFM to bring a $21 billion benefit to the state. The Research Council has had a lot to say about this issue, including in our testimony to the House Finance Committee.