Questions for the Kansas City Public Schools Master Plan
The Kansas City Public School’s new master strategic plan has already attracted its fair share of controversy. Closing Southwest, a...
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“This Time It’ll Be Different”
I’ll bet that’s what Phelps County officials are thinking as they set out to create a new tax increment financing...
Missouri Mayors and the Minimum Wage
Kansas City Mayor Sly James and St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay recently called for a statewide minimum wage increase in...
City Should Reject Central West End TIFs
Recently, the Saint Louis Business Journal reported that Koman Group, a real estate developer, plans to add to two apartment...
The Lake Loves Local Subsidies
It seems you win some, you lose some. Just as soon as I was about to pop open a bottle...
Top Misconceptions About the Riverfront Stadium Plan
As the fight over funding a new riverfront stadium, designed to keep the Rams in Saint Louis, plays out in the...
A History of Kansas City’s Convention Pursuits
Consultant suggests convention-center expansion. Expansion disappoints. Consultant suggests 1,000-room hotel. No one questions consultant about previous suggestion. Instead, city officials...
Stadium Planners Move to Block City Vote
Last week, the Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority (RSA) brought suit against Saint Louis City over an ordinance that...
Schools and Libraries Should Get a Piece of the Action
Localities engaged in a tax subsidy bender shouldn’t be surprised if they wake up with a nasty hangover in the...
Show-Me Study Featured in New Book
Tax subsidies for economic development were designed to go to poor areas that actually needed development. But that is not...
Riding to the Hounds of Corporate Welfare
Oscar Wilde famously defined foxhunting as “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.” His quip aptly describes a sport...
Urban Neglect: Kansas City and TIF
My colleague Michael Rathbone and I authored an essay titled “Urban Neglect, Kansas City’s Misuse of Tax Increment Financing.” In the essay we examined...
Light Rail Never Sleeps: The Saint Louis Edition
Recently, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that St. Louis Metro would receive a TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery)...
Show-Me Now! Is Kansas City Addicted to Corporate Welfare?
Tax Increment Financing and similar tax subsidies are intended to improve areas that are blighted, but is that what they’re...
That Burns & McDonnell TIF And Vandalism
Earlier this year, the Kansas City Council voted to use tax dollars to subsidize a project for Burns & McDonnell,...
Nix The NIDs
A variety of innocuous-sounding names and acronyms are springing up like weeds in communities all over Missouri. They are a...
Burns and Mac Does Not Ask For Moon: NASA Calls Them ‘Responsible Corporate Citizen’
One theme being bandied about regarding Burns and McDonnell’s request for tax subsidies is that company officials did not ask...
Corporate Welfare Defense: ‘We Could Have Taken More’
Burns & McDonnell, a successful top-20 engineering firm based in Kansas City, is poor. So poor, that in order to...
Going Too Far To Limit Voter Input
There are at least two efforts in the Missouri General Assembly to prevent the ability of local voters to restrict...
‘Tis Time For TIF Reform
That title would make a pretty good protest chant, if you ask me. Although the use of “‘Tis” to help...
