Government costs what it costs. If government gives away tax dollars spent given companies breaks, it's just shifting the cost of government to workers who work for that business. And sure, employees would probably rather have the jobs than the tax money the company should have been paying.Obviously. And incentives are going to influence where that 'somewhere' is as lots of somewheres, US and foreign, are vying to be that somewhere. Like I said I agree in principal but in reality if you don't engage in corporate welfare via incentives you won't get the jobs that corporate welfare brings. Pragmatically, you can stick to your principals but more "somewheres" will be Mexico, Malaysia, India, etc. or just other states that did pay to play.
But, for the sake of employing people in Tennessee vs Oklahoma, or for the sake of employing more people than it would have otherwise, is different thing than for the sake of keeping the jobs in the US rather than in Mexico. I suspect there are other ways to keep jobs here. But we actually have to want to keep jobs here.