None of the recommendations were adopted. The number of subsidies have changed too much to do a quick calculation, but in 2018 Citizens Budget Commission estimated that state tax breaks had ballooned to a cost of at least $2.54 billion per year (this does not include spending on the state’s other economic development programs, which totaled $1.8 billion).

Policymakers can disagree on whether or not the main argument of Solomon and Rubin’s letter holds up. But for their tax subsidy recommendations, there is no debate.