Should Honda (a Japanese company) be allowed to build a manufacturing plant in Indiana? Toyota and Honda are increasing market share in the U.S. while GM and Ford are losing market share.
Indiana wants this plant. Indiana has lost 98,000 industrial jobs since 2000. Indiana wants this plant so bad that it outbid four other states to get it. That's right. Outbid them. What was Indiana's bid? $141.5 million dollars in incentives to Honda, including training assistance and tax credits and abatements. The plant is expected to employ 2,000 people, and Honda will spend $550 million to build it.
This plant is part of a global expansion by Honda that calls for a total expenditure of $1.18 billion, and this plant is expected to eventually produce 200,000 vehicles annually.
The other four states that wanted the plant are Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. Is it wrong for us to allow this plant? What if there have been others already built in this country? Were 5 of the 50 states in the U.S. wrong to try and attract this plant? Should they have gone to Congress and demanded that the plant be a Ford plant or a GM plant?
What does all of this mean, if anything, in the matter of Ford getting ready to build a new plant in Mexico? That's right. Ford is going to Mexico, and Honda is going to build here. Are they competing with each other? What do you think all of this means?