No, she doesn’t evince the dour superiority of Aldona Wos. No, she isn’t afflicted by the ideological madness of John Skvarla. Yes, she paid lip service to safety net. And no, Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker’s policies don’t deserve the relatively free pass Democrats have given them.

One virtue of the  Democratic establishment was their relative stinginess  with incentives. The largest offering they ever gave was about the same size , in nominal terms, as Alabama’s infamous Mercedes deal, even though it came ten years later.  And all their  deals typically  came with solid accountability provisions.  Taken together, these factors kept us out of the sewer of corruption and profligacy in which the Deep South wallows.

Decker’s thrown that mentality into reverse. Her statements on incentives are firmly supportive and sometimes gung-ho. She told a House committee, “If everyone else is going to pick up their toys, I’ll pick up my toys. But that ain’t gonna happen, guys, so I’ve still got to have a quiver full of arrows.” On another occasion, she convened a meeting over ten pending, mega-expensive ideals and chided the lawmakers, saying “You all don’t have the stomach for this.”

Because they don’t have the stomach, she has long wanted a slush fund to pour into corporate coffers of her choice. Her arguments rest on open race-to-the-bottom logic. Other states have these programs, so we have to match their generosity. Strikingly, she specifically implied the fund could offset companies’ severance costs–i.e., that we should subsidize layoffs. It’s hard to imagine a more pro-corporate welfare, anti-worker idea.

It’s  important to note that NC’s new approach hasn’t been spectacularly successful. The Triangle Business Journal reported that in 2013 the state won fewer deals than it did  in Perdue’s last year. Decker’s team procured 22% less corporate investment, despite prioritizing capital-intensive industries like agriculture and manufacturing. Factoring out the MetLife deal, which Perdue’s team initiated, we also received fewer jobs. So there’s not much case for an incentives-heavy policy in general, and little reason to think a single new recruitment “tool” could make up for such a large difference in the investment arena.

Sharon Decker isn’t a bad person by any means. But her policies are yet another attack on our traditional approach and should be opposed by all principled Democrats.

Alexander H. Jones

Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.