More On Stupid Competition Amongst States

Richard Longworth (h/t the Dish):

This competition is not new, but it seems to have heated up since 2009, when Kansas passed a law that lets companies relocating to the state keep 95 percent of their employee withholding tax for up to 10 years. This has lured several companies to move from Kansas City, Missouri, to Kansas City, Kansas (known locally as KCK) and its suburbs, bringing several hundred jobs with them. Stung by the moves, the Missouri KC has offered multi-million-dollar packages to keep firms, like the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and AMC Entertainment, from decamping to the Kansas side.
Top Corporate Leaders Urge Governors to Stop Poaching Neighbors’ Businesses, Kansas City Star, April 11, 2011
Businesses Stand to Gain Most in Rivalry of States, New York Times, April 7, 2011
Kansas and Missouri aren't the only Midwestern states raiding each other's watermelon patches. The governors of Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, which would seem to share a common economy, have been squabbling over which state has the lowest taxes, to the point that Indiana and Wisconsin have posted billboards on their state lines urging Illinois companies to flee north or east, as the case may be (presumably passing en route all those Democratic legislators from Indiana and Wisconsin who hid out in Illinois to avoid having to vote for objectionable legislation back home.)
In Kansas and Missouri, all this has reached the point that even businesses in the two KCs, which presumably could benefit from these bribes, have told their two states to grow up. Seventeen leading businessmen from both sides of the border sent an open letter to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, urging them to voluntarily "agree to a bilateral halt" in this "economic border war."
Nixon responded positively. Brownback basically told the businessmen to go jump in the Missouri River. This probably has something to do with the fact that, so far, Kansas has been winning most of these battles. 

Republicans have staked their political future on being able to prove that lower taxes mean more jobs, so they have to go around slashing taxes and spending, and then bribing businesses to move to their state, preferably from a higher tax state.  Unfortunately, this means cuts to primary, secondary and higher education, cuts to local governments and public safety, cuts to libraries and cuts to infrastructure spending.  Those are all long-term investments to improve the work force and the livability of the state which are being cut.  The short-term payoff of new jobs (taken from a neighboring state) might get a politician reelected or allow him to move to higher office (failing up, as it were), but come time those incentives expire, the business will start shopping for more incentives, possibly in a state which is willing to undermine long-term investment for short-term job growth (see Sears).  This is a failing strategy for all but the companies, and even they are undermining the long-term workforce quality where they move to.  When businesses are requesting that it stop, you know it has gone too far.