If the seven-member comedy act that was the October 18 gubernatorial debate can be said to have had a serious message, it was likely this: It's the jobs, stupid. Amid the prostitution jokes, one of the most pressing questions of the night was how New York's next governor plans to address an economic future that looks, by anyone's reckoning, bleak.

Neither Andrew Cuomo nor Carl Paladino returned multiple requests for comment, but both have issued statements or proposals that provide insight into their plans. Paladino has addressed the state's economic future by issuing policy statements that amount to sound bites: He says he wants to cut income taxes and business taxes on manufacturing, while slashing spending by 20 percent his first year in office. Cuomo, meanwhile, has written a 224-page policy treatise, The New NY Agenda: A Plan for Action, containing a 33-page chapter devoted to economic development.

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Neil deMause
Neil deMause
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Among Cuomo's promised reforms:

  • A $300 million "Jobs Now" tax credit that would refund payroll taxes for any new employees hired by New York businesses and kept on the job for at least one year.

  • Revamp the Empire Zone economic development program to focus on key growth industries. Subsidy recipients would also be required to indicate how many jobs they promise to create. Those who achieve their goals would get subsidies equal to 80 percent of state income tax withholding for the new jobs; companies creating less would be subject to a "clawback," forcing them to repay the subsidies on a pro-rated basis.

  • Revamp the existing Industrial Development Agencies, by instituting "regional economic councils" that would oversee development strategy and prevent local agencies from using state money to poach jobs from elsewhere in New York.

  • Cap local property taxes and otherwise reduce regulatory and tax obstacles for companies wishing to move to New York.

    • Some of Cuomo's proposals should please critics of the current subsidy system – the need for "clawbacks," for example, has been a common refrain among development experts who say that too often, companies collect taxpayer dollars and then fail to supply the promised jobs. And two of his proposals – "Jobs Now" and his revamped Empire Zones — would encourage companies to create higher wage jobs, by tying the size of company's subsidy to its level of employee pay.

    Still, numerous questions remain as to how effective Cuomo's proposals would be at actually reforming economic development in New York.

    For example, clawbacks may seem foolproof – if a company doesn't meet its job goals, the state gets its money back. Yet the government must first ask for its money back – an unappealing option to public officials who don't want to appear "unfriendly" to business. According to documents compiled by the subsidy-watch group Good Jobs New York, Pfizer received $46 million from the New York City IDA in 2003, in exchange for creating 1,000 new jobs. When the company instead announced layoffs, the IDA declined to implement the deal's clawback provision, merely vowing to reject any Pfizer request for additional subsidies. In another deal, in 2006, Met Life received $27 million to relocate 1,750 workers from Manhattan to Long Island City, and then reneged. Instead of seeking to collect $24 million through a clawback provision, the city merely fined the company $5 million, and restructured the deal to ease Met Life's job requirements.