Looking To The Angels

When the legislative circus is in town, not a day goes by without some politician floating an “innnovative” proposal promising to solve a major problem with a tiny tweak.

One from the House and Senate majority leaders — Denise Merrill and Martin Looney, respectively — contains several seemingly good ideas and bears the imprint of a Job Growth Roundtable.

But as always, the devil is in the detail.

The bill — HB 5435 — would create a tax credit of 25 percent for angel investors. Sounds good but even the backers admit there are very few angel investors active in the state. And angels — the source of more investment cash than mom and dad but less than full-blown venture capitalists — are a specialized breed who often act as individuals.

Certainly every bit of tax encouragement helps investment but why should the state tax code favor angels over other risk takers who work in larger scale and thus potentially create more jobs?

This has the odd odor of a plan to reward some special interest rather than a plan to create jobs. Buyer beware.