THE PEOPLE'S BRIEF

I am not a lobbyist. I am not a consultant. I am not paid by any company, any economic development corporation, or any government agency. I am a service-connected disabled veteran who served thirteen years in the United States Army as a Staff Sergeant. I am a lifelong resident of the Rio Grande Valley. I am the founder of Brasidas Strategies and the principal architect of Ayala™ — a proprietary neurointelligence research system developed over more than a decade to serve veterans, the blind, the disabled, and their families.

Along the way, I discovered that the same analytical tools I built to fight the VA could be applied to another kind of extraction: the economic development deals that have been devastating communities like mine for decades.

This document is the product of that work. It is not written to tell you what to think. It is written to give you the tools to think for yourself. Every claim is sourced. Every calculation is shown. Every concept is explained. If you read nothing else, read the Executive Summary. If you want to understand the math, read Section 3. If you want to know what questions to ask your elected officials, read Section 5. If you want to understand why this keeps happening, read Section 6.

I offer this freely to anyone who wants it. Reproduce it. Share it. Use it at public hearings. Use it to question your representatives. Use it to educate your neighbors. Knowledge is the only antidote to extraction.

— Arnoldo Alonso

The Central Finding

For over forty years, communities across the United States have been offered the same deal: give a large corporation a massive tax break, and it will bring jobs and prosperity. The academic evidence demonstrates that this model does not work. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the promised jobs fail to materialize at the promised scale and wages, the public cost far exceeds any plausible fiscal return, and the primary beneficiaries are corporate shareholders — not the community.

The Current Situation

A company is seeking a 95% property tax abatement from Cameron County, Texas, to build a large manufacturing facility. The company projects "up to 10,000 jobs" and an average wage near $90,000. The Commissioners Court vote is scheduled for June 16, 2026.

What This Document Provides

1. The Scientific Evidence — forty years of peer-reviewed research on business tax incentives
2. The Mathematical Analysis — step-by-step deconstruction of the company's claims
3. The Historical Record — comparable deals and what actually happened
4. The Red Flags Checklist — eight-point framework for evaluating any incentive proposal
5. The Questions to Ask — 21 specific questions demanding public answers
6. The Deeper Pattern — why this model persists despite documented failure

1.1 The Experts Have Spoken

The question of whether business tax incentives work has been studied for decades by the most respected economists in the world. Their findings are published in peer-reviewed journals. They have no financial stake in any particular incentive deal.

1.2 What Creates Real Prosperity?

A 2019 study by the Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst:

Jobs Created per $1 Billion Invested

Investment Type	Jobs Created per $1 Billion
Education	26,000
Mass Transit	22,000
Healthcare	18,000
Clean Energy	17,000
Defense Manufacturing	11,000

1.3 The Historical Record

Company / Location	Year	Subsidy	Jobs Promised	Outcome
Foxconn / Wisconsin	2017	$4.8B	13,000	768 jobs delivered. Deal renegotiated 2021. $10B investment never made.
Nissan / Mississippi	2000	$1.3B	Thousands	Wages $10–$15/hr with heavy temp staffing. No economic transformation.
Boeing / S. Carolina	2009	$900M	Thousands	Jobs delivered at ~$230,000 per position in public subsidy.
Amazon HQ2 / New York	2018	$1.5B+	25,000	Public opposition killed the deal. Company expanded elsewhere without the subsidy.
Tesla / Nevada	2014	$1.3B	6,500	Below-target delivery. Wages mixed.

2.1 The Company

Saronic Technologies — a defense startup designing autonomous vessels for maritime military applications. Founded 2022, Austin TX. Raised $2.525 billion in venture capital. Valued at $7.5 billion (Series D, March 2026). Verified employees as of late 2024: 271 (Exa Intelligence).

2.2 The Proposal

95% property tax abatement on $2.7B taxable value, 19 years (2029–2048). "Up to 10,000 jobs" at average $90,000. Minimum wage $25/hour ($52,000/year). 835 acres at Port of Brownsville. Vote tabled June 3, 2026. Next vote: June 16, 2026.

2.3 What Changes Everything

• The company already operates a shipyard in Franklin, Louisiana — acquired facility (Gulf Craft, early 2025), $500M+ deployed, first vessel launched May 2026. Port Alpha is expansion, not survival.
• The CEO's background is private equity — Vista Equity Partners, H.I.G. Capital, Blackstone Real Estate. Training in extracting value for investors, not building sustainable manufacturing operations.
• Saronic is one of seven competitors for the Navy MUSV contract — including Huntington Ingalls Industries (the largest Navy shipbuilder in the US) and Leidos ($14B defense contractor).
• gCaptain, authoritative maritime industry publication: "The speed everyone is applauding was already sitting in that boatshed before Saronic's logo went on the door." The Franklin timeline does not predict the Port Alpha timeline.

Every calculation is shown. Every assumption is stated. Every source is cited.

3.1 The Payroll Problem

3.2 The Workforce That Cannot Be Hired

3.3 The Average Wage Illusion

An average is not the typical wage. Example: 100 executives at $500,000 + 9,900 workers at $52,000 = average of $56,480. Nine of ten workers earn the floor. The company's reported average shifted 19% — from $75,500 to $90,000 — between initial press coverage and the formal presentation, with no explanation. No wage distribution has been disclosed.

3.4 The True Subsidy

3.5 The Hidden Water Cost

A major shipyard consumes millions of gallons of water per day. Brownsville PUB CEO stated publicly: "large industrial users seeking guaranteed water capacity may need agreements that help fund new water sources." Independent estimates: $150M–$400M in required water infrastructure — entirely separate from the tax abatement. No disclosure from the company.

3.6 The Five-Leg Parlay

For Port Alpha to deliver all promised value, five independent conditions must be simultaneously true:

#	Condition	Est. Probability
1	Navy autonomous vessel contracts scale from $65M/yr to $2B+/yr	30%
2	Saronic wins large MUSV share vs. 6 competitors including HII and Leidos	25%
3	10,000 jobs materialize at a true $90,000 average wage	20%
4	Majority of jobs filled by Cameron County residents	50%
5	No clawback failure or renegotiation over 19 years	55%

The incentive negotiation process follows a predictable, well-documented pattern. Understanding this pattern is essential to resisting it.

1. The company identifies multiple potential sites.
2. The company creates competition among them. Each jurisdiction is told — explicitly or implicitly — that it is competing against other sites with generous offers. This creates anxiety among local officials who fear losing the project.
3. The company extracts maximum concessions. Jurisdictions, driven by fear of losing out, increase their offers. The "winning" bid far exceeds what was actually necessary to attract the investment.
4. The company selects the location it preferred all along. Bartik's research: true in at least 90% of cases. The subsidy did not change the decision; it simply enriched the company at public expense.
5. The promised benefits fail to materialize. Headline job numbers are for a distant final phase. The binding Phase 1 commitment is a fraction. Even that is often not met.

The following questions should be asked publicly, under oath, with answers recorded and made available to the public before any vote is taken.

Revenue & Contracts

1. Does the company have existing Navy procurement contracts? Provide contract numbers, award dates, values, and durations.
2. Does the company have letters of intent or MOUs with the Department of Defense or any prime defense contractor?
3. Does the company have commercial vessel orders? From whom, at what volume, at what price?
4. How much annual revenue does the company currently generate? Provide audited financial statements.
5. How does the company plan to generate $2.25B–$2.70B in annual revenue to sustain the proposed payroll?

Jobs & Wages

6. What is the specific, binding Phase 1 job target, and by what year must it be achieved?
7. What is the full projected wage distribution, by $10,000 bands?
8. How many of the "up to 10,000 jobs" will be direct hires versus temp agency employees?
9. Will production workers receive health insurance, retirement benefits, and paid leave?
10. Why did the average wage change from $75,500 to $90,000 between initial reports and the formal presentation?

Workforce & Training

11. What is the plan to recruit 973 new workers per year from a market producing only 1,600 qualified graduates annually?
12. What partnerships exist with local school districts, community colleges, or workforce development boards?
13. What percentage of the projected workforce is expected to be Cameron County residents?

Water & Infrastructure

14. What is the projected daily water consumption at full buildout?
15. What is the source of this water?
16. What infrastructure upgrades are required, and at what cost?
17. What share of these costs will the company pay?
18. What is the contingency plan if the region enters mandatory water rationing?

Finances & Governance

19. Provide copies of any pitch deck or financial model used to justify the $7.5B valuation.
20. What is the plan to achieve profitability, and in what year does the company project becoming cash-flow positive?
21. What automatic, non-negotiable clawback penalties will the company accept for failure to meet Phase 1 commitments?

If the incentive model is a documented failure, why does it persist? The answer lies not in economics but in the dynamics of power, psychology, and politics.

Concentrated Benefits, Diffuse Costs

A $100 million tax break is concentrated in a single, highly motivated recipient. The cost is spread across thousands of taxpayers, each paying a little more, none feeling enough pain to organize against it. The system is structurally rigged in favor of the concentrated interest.

The Symbolism of the Ribbon-Cutting

A politician at a new factory makes the evening news. A politician maintaining a water treatment plant does not. The incentive model rewards symbolic action over substantive governance.

The Industry That Profits

An entire industry of site-selection consultants, bond lawyers, and economic development professionals makes its living from incentive deals. They provide the "analysis" that justifies the deals, creating a closed loop of self-serving logic.

Short-Term Thinking

Elected officials operate on election cycles. The costs of an incentive deal take years or decades to materialize. The political credit from announcing a deal is immediate. The structure of political time is perfectly aligned with making bad long-term decisions.

Any jurisdiction facing a high-pressure incentive negotiation may wish to communicate the following:

"We have reviewed the proposal. We have reviewed the scientific evidence. We have reviewed the historical record. We are not going to participate in an auction that pits communities against each other for the benefit of private investors. We are prepared to negotiate a fair, transparent, and enforceable agreement. If the company can meet these conditions — verifiable contracts, binding job commitments with automatic clawbacks, a full wage distribution, and an independent cost-benefit analysis — we welcome further discussion. If the company prefers to expand without these conditions, we wish them well. Our obligation is to the people we serve, not to the investors of any private firm."

The company asking for your money has raised $2.5 billion from investors. It is valued at $7.5 billion. It already owns an operating shipyard in another state. It is run by a private equity professional whose career has been spent extracting value for investors.

I am a service-connected disabled veteran and the founder of Brasidas Strategies. The analytical system that produced this research — Ayala™ — was developed independently over more than a decade. Brasidas Strategies has no financial interest in the outcome of this vote, no client relationship with any party to this transaction, and no affiliation with any economic development organization.

You do not need their money. They need your land, your port, your workforce, and your tax base. The question is not whether you can afford to say no. The question is whether you can afford to say yes on the terms they have offered.

The evidence is in. The math is done. The decision is yours.