Homeschooling, Centralized Education, and Bastiat
As my family and I practice social distancing, I’ve decided to take time to read some of the “must-read” authors...
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Good Riddance to Bad Policy
The Joplin Globe recently reported that Joplin’s disaster recovery tax-increment financing (TIF) district is being closed after eight years, and...
Is U City Considering Eminent Domain After All?
Trust your gut. That’s about as good and as universal of a piece of advice as you can get. Skeptics...
Serious TIF Reform May Be in the Cards in 2020, With A Tweak
As we’ve often noted, tax-increment financing (TIF) in Missouri drains millions of dollars from legitimate government uses every year, often...
A Tired Tale of Incentives
According to an article from the St. Louis Business Journal, the developers behind the Iron Hill complex (a 14-acre development...
Prop 13 Comes to Missouri
California’s Proposition 13 was enacted in 1978 as a reaction against high property taxes and some dramatic increases in tax...
Aquarium Project Repeats Familiar Mistakes
Local media in St. Louis is abuzz over the imminent completion of the Union Station renovation project. The St. Louis...
Where Are Those Jobs, Cerner?
In 2014, Cerner received “the largest economic development project in the history of the state” to build its new headquarters...
Why “Developer” Is and Is Not a Dirty Word
In a recent piece at the New York Times, a writer laments: Real estate developers are indeed fraught characters in...
A Field of Subsidies
If at first you don’t succeed, get more government help. That seems to be the mantra of Missouri developers and...
TIF Tyranny Claims Another City
Last month, big business scored yet another victory at the expense of taxpayers. The University City Council unanimously approved a...
An Open Letter to Waddell & Reed Employees
Dear Waddell & Reed employees, I read with interest a story in The Kansas City Business Journal that your company...
KC’s economic development study parroted exactly what the city wanted
The following commentary also appeared in the Kansas City Star. Businessman John Wannamaker famously quipped, “Half the money I spend on...
Hotels and Supply and Demand
VisitKC, Kansas City’s convention and visitor’s bureau, is making presentations in which they claim that the city’s occupancy rate—the percentage...
Springfield’s Convention Dream
Private consultants have determined that Springfield, Missouri is on the cusp of attracting a great deal of new convention business....
Kansas City’s Christmas Tree
If you’ve lived in Kansas City for a while, you’ve heard all about building new things. We’ve built a new...
How Not to Study Economic Development Incentives
Economic development incentives are all the rage. And they aren’t all multi-billion-dollar packages to attract a new Amazon headquarters. Many...
You Gotta Spend Money to… Spend Money?
We’ve all heard the phrase, “you have to spend money to make money.” Thanks to some reporting by Brian Robbins...
Too Many Hotels in KC, According to Hotel Developer Seeking Subsidies
In a blog post earlier this year I wondered about Kansas City, “If previous subsidies successfully created a vibrant economic...
Tallying the Costs of Development Subsidies
Cities across Missouri are struggling to provide basic public services. At the same time, they’re giving hundreds of millions of...
