By Greg LeRoy, CNBC

Then-candidate Donald Trump made American jobs a hyper-politicized issue, and even though unemployment is low, it's still big news when Carrier lays off workers in Indiana or when Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn eyes Midwestern states to possibly create thousands of new jobs.

States and localities spend aggressively to lure private investment: one academic study estimated $70 billion per year — and that was before the Great Recession prompted some governors and mayors to double down on tax-break offers.

By Greg LeRoy in Bloomberg/BNA Daily Tax Report

As of early June, more than a dozen local governments have issued Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) reporting for the first time how much revenue they lost to economic development tax break programs. Some of these early disclosures are overly narrow, others are needlessly difficult to decipher—and a few go far beyond the basic requirements, providing taxpayers and investors outstanding new information.