That's an unfair way to say it. You could equally say "Louisiana spends about 20% of its local municipal revenue supporting local businesses."

I have no idea if that is a big number or how it compares to other states. I also have no idea if it's a good investment - perhaps it results in lots of jobs and ultimately more than 20% increase in tax take (you should also factor in if it's just pulling jobs and therefore taxes from elsewhere, rather than creating new value).

But the money is no more "lost" than it would be if they spent it on schools or roads or whatever else.

It's an accurate way to say it.

The companies that are getting the breaks are large multinationals who drop polluting chemical plants into towns and raise local cancer rates while getting sweetheart deals that true local corporations never get.

Furthermore, the end number is just going to be a reflection of how in-vs-out sourced the state .gov is anyway.

Does it really matter if the state is patching its own roads or running its own homeless shelters or cutting checks (aka "corporate welfare") for 3rd parties to do it? At the end of the day those things are state funded whether or not the people doing the work have state letterhead on their pay stubs.