Back in 2012, just as the Town of Portsmouth was beginning to crow about the profitability of its taxpayer-subsidized wind turbine, government officials had to eat that crow when the unit failed, with a fix priced at more than the supposed profit.  That anecdote came to mind when I read of Alexion Pharmaceuticals’ plan to close up its Rhode Island shop.  According to WPRI’s Nancy Krause:

Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced Tuesday morning it is closing its plant in Smithfield and moving manufacturing operations to other sites in the United States and Ireland.

A spokeswoman told Eyewitness News Alexion has 250 employees at the location, which the company said has been a key manufacturing site for Soliris – a high-priced treatment for two rare genetic disorders – over the past 10 years.

Add that 250 to the 715 Benny’s employees now set to lose their jobs, and it begins to appear that the economic winds might blow away every single job increase that Governor Gina Raimondo’s Commerce Corp. has bribed, or will bribe, companies to create in the state.

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Of course, we can’t know whether anything that the State of Rhode Island could have done would have saved the nearly 1,000 jobs that are now going to be erased from our local ledger from just these two companies, but if the economy is shedding jobs while only creating them when heavily subsidized, that’s a very strong signal that we should try another approach.  Simply change the state’s focus to making it easier for residents to live and do business, and companies will have more incentive to stay and innovate here.

All those bribes would have gone a long way toward making such refocusing possible.