So State Street takes $2b in TARP funds, makes $1.9b in profits last year, pays its CEO $16m, and the city of Boston and is giving it handouts ? This is only a few months after they blocked a developer's residential project a few blocks down the street which required no handouts. Instead of giving $12m to State Street, why don't they use it for schools or fixing the T?

uh casey, you forgot to mention LIBERTY MUTUAL in your notations of companies receiving tax subsidies. or maybe you didn't. casey, i know you have an aversion like some of your other colleagues have in not wanting to upset anybodies applecart by asking questions but just maybe you might wanna ask the globes favorite gold standard for being a fiscal watchdog on whether the 20 million plus waht the state threw in to liberty mutual to round out the giveaway to $46.5 MIILION was worth the taxpayers hard earned gelt. he should know as he babysat the city council the day the vote was taken. or better yet ask the social moth, former council president ross if it was worth it. btw one would have to be from another galaxy to know all the decisions the BRA and it's chairman peter the human buffet line meade are made by which blithering nitwit bagman mayor. ma

Corporate welfare for a company that laying off Americans while crating jobs in India. Disgusting.

For Vertex and developer Joe Fallon, a Friend of Tom, the state also subsidized the project to the tune of $50 million by issuing a bond which will end up costing the state double that amount after 30 years of debt service. The Globe forgot to mention all the seaport "blight"-based tax breaks under Chapter 121A (http://www.businesstoday.com/business/business/sub03082002.htm). Joe Fallon got 121A tax exemptions for his waterfront hotel and also his convention center hotel, which was bid specifically on the condition that there would be no public subsidy. Developer John Drew and Fidelity Investments built two office towers and a hotel near the World Trade Center, all of which have 121A tax breaks. Chapter 121A's, based on phony blight declarations for wealthy developers all over the city, are depriving us of about $70 million a year, an estimate I based on Herald reports on this tax boondoggle. And stop using the Boston Municipal Research Bureau as the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. It's not a "fiscal watchdog over the city budget," as it's usually described – it's a business group created to lobby for corporate subsidies and other business benefits while promoting austerity for public services. See the board of directors and the sponsors at https://www.bmrb.org/board.asp, where you will find State Street Bank, John Drew, Fidelity, Liberty Mutual, and all the other corporate welfare recipients.