Imagine working hard under the blazing West Texas sun, trying to keep your small business afloat while inflation chips away at your hard-earned savings. Every dollar you make is heavily taxed, and you expect those funds to go toward basic municipal services like fixing roads or maintaining public safety. Instead, local politicians in Midland have decided that your tax dollars are better spent padding the pockets of a multi-million-dollar satellite manufacturer. This is the bitter reality of corporate welfare, where everyday taxpayers are forced to underwrite the risks of massive corporations.
On July 21, 2026, the Midland City Council and the Midland Development Corporation officially approved a staggering 30-year economic development agreement with AST SpaceMobile. This deal commits up to $66 million in public incentives over three decades to support a new 400,000-square-foot satellite manufacturing facility at the Spaceport Business Park. According to the City of Midland News Release, this performance-based incentive package is designed to stimulate the local economy, but it actually locks the city into long-term corporate subsidy obligations.
When local governments engage in these types of multi-million-dollar handouts, they distort the free market. They pick winners and losers, giving massive corporations an artificial advantage over the local, independent businesses that represent the true backbone of Midland. The Mena FN Coverage details that this massive commitment of municipal resources will bind the city's financial planning for the next 30 years. Instead of allowing taxpayers to keep their money or using it for genuine public goods, the city has tied its fiscal future to the performance of a single satellite enterprise.
Proponents of these deals always promise that the jobs created will pay off in the long run. However, history shows that such top-down economic planning rarely delivers the prosperity promised, and it establishes a dangerous precedent. The money funneled into these corporate incentives must come from somewhere, meaning Midland property owners will continue to shoulder heavy tax burdens to pay for infrastructure that primarily benefits private entities. When we subsidize wealthy corporations with public money, we are not growing the local economy, we are simply taking money from local citizens and transferring it to powerful special interests.
This massive transfer of wealth represents a profound misunderstanding of the role of local government. Local authorities should focus on protecting individual rights, maintaining roads, and ensuring public safety, rather than acting as venture capitalists with other people's money. This decision is not public service, it is corporate welfare disguised as economic growth, and Midland residents deserve better.