Can Finch, Molloy, Bloomberg or Lennie show the Lowly Taxpayers a Letter of Intent? If not, then welcome to Buffaloport! www .youtube.com/watch?v=Z9ME9hH7O9Y
Damn you, Malloy!!! You place the public in a debt position for a private business. The entire project won’t return 22 million to the State even before it declares bankruptcy. Malloy and Finch deserve a beating for this fraud. I hope somebody beats Malloy and tells Bass, you want a store, pay for it!!!
While the State and local government officials put us deeper in debt (as private financiers have demanded more public money to pursue risky projects), there is precious little big-picture financial presentations of a model with a timeline that would provide ‘some reality’ to the public in exchange for harnessing us to the promise to pay increased taxes in the future. Will people understand the upside and downside views in order today? The point is borrowing to build Knowlton Park for $8 Million already or $8 Million more from bonding is one thing that becomes a reality for 20 or more years from the Operating Budget. And a similar thing happens at the State level for the funds dedicated to Steel Point. Time will tell.
Think about this. I am going to build a shop in BPT. I think I will spend $22 mil. Malloy opts to sell $22 mil in bonds to finance the project. I may get an advantage using my $22 mil to buy all the bonds, then borrowing the $22 mil back from the state. The bond interest is tax free and the loan interest is a tax-deductible business expense. Even if I do not repay the loan I may be able to still cash the bonds and get my money back.
A Bass Pro Shops opened in Bossier City in 2005 after city officials promised to give the retailer $38 million to pay for the construction of the 106,000-square-foot store in this Red River community.
Such deals are commonplace.
Both Bass Pro Shops and its archrival Cabela’s, sell hunting and fishing gear in cathedral-like stores featuring taxidermied wildlife, gigantic fresh-water aquarium exhibits and elaborate outdoor reproductions within the stores. The stores are billed as job generators by both companies when they are fishing for development dollars. But the firms’ economic benefits are minimal and costs to taxpayers are great.
An exhaustive investigation conducted by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity found the two competing firms together have received or are promised more than $2.2 billion from American taxpayers over the past 15 years.
“Retail is not economic development. People don’t suddenly have more money to spend on hip waders because a new Bass Pro or Cabela’s comes to town,” says Greg Leroy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a non-partisan economic development watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. “All that happens is that money spent at local mom and pop retailers shifts to these big box retailers. When government gives these big box stores tax dollars, they are effectively picking who the winners and losers are going to be.”
The idea to lure businesses with taxpayer money started off innocently enough but now we have gotten to the point the benefit from the business does not outweigh the cost of the subsidy. The business people are smart enough to get the subsidies from multiple sources (city, state, feds). Each source is unaware of what the other source is doing. It is hard to ‘see’ what the total public subsidies are. They also build the subsidy over time. Much like buying a new car where you add a radio for $2/mo, AC for $15/mo, comfort package for $21/mo. After you finish you have added $300/mo to the cost of the car. Bass Pro started by needing just one little thing, then one more little thing. Now, we have built the building, pre-paid for the initial stock and paid for all the landscaping. Many of the benefits the companies promote are years in the future and may or may not come to fruition and may have happened anyway. I.e., if BPT pays to build the Bass Pro building, Bass Pro will come. They will hire people and those people will buy houses in BPT. That is years into the future. Those people would have worked somewhere and the rest is very hypothetical.
Somehow these companies have convinced us they are doing cities a favor by coming. It is good they are coming to BPT, but if they wanted a store in Fairfield County, where else could they have gone? There is an empty movie theater in Milford but that is about their only other choice. That theater location is not near the water and they would be too close to Bob’s Sports in the mall. How long will it take for the state and city to ‘break even’ on the subsidies we gave to Bass Pro? How much damage will Bass Pro do to other businesses in the area?
Can Finch, Molloy, Bloomberg or Lennie show the Lowly Taxpayers a Letter of Intent? If not, then welcome to Buffaloport!
www .youtube.com/watch?v=Z9ME9hH7O9Y
Damn you, Malloy!!! You place the public in a debt position for a private business. The entire project won’t return 22 million to the State even before it declares bankruptcy. Malloy and Finch deserve a beating for this fraud. I hope somebody beats Malloy and tells Bass, you want a store, pay for it!!!
While the State and local government officials put us deeper in debt (as private financiers have demanded more public money to pursue risky projects), there is precious little big-picture financial presentations of a model with a timeline that would provide ‘some reality’ to the public in exchange for harnessing us to the promise to pay increased taxes in the future. Will people understand the upside and downside views in order today? The point is borrowing to build Knowlton Park for $8 Million already or $8 Million more from bonding is one thing that becomes a reality for 20 or more years from the Operating Budget. And a similar thing happens at the State level for the funds dedicated to Steel Point. Time will tell.
It’s the era of crony capitalism–socialize the risk and privatize the profit.
Think about this. I am going to build a shop in BPT. I think I will spend $22 mil. Malloy opts to sell $22 mil in bonds to finance the project. I may get an advantage using my $22 mil to buy all the bonds, then borrowing the $22 mil back from the state. The bond interest is tax free and the loan interest is a tax-deductible business expense. Even if I do not repay the loan I may be able to still cash the bonds and get my money back.
A Bass Pro Shops opened in Bossier City in 2005 after city officials promised to give the retailer $38 million to pay for the construction of the 106,000-square-foot store in this Red River community.
Such deals are commonplace.
Both Bass Pro Shops and its archrival Cabela’s, sell hunting and fishing gear in cathedral-like stores featuring taxidermied wildlife, gigantic fresh-water aquarium exhibits and elaborate outdoor reproductions within the stores. The stores are billed as job generators by both companies when they are fishing for development dollars. But the firms’ economic benefits are minimal and costs to taxpayers are great.
An exhaustive investigation conducted by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity found the two competing firms together have received or are promised more than $2.2 billion from American taxpayers over the past 15 years.
“Retail is not economic development. People don’t suddenly have more money to spend on hip waders because a new Bass Pro or Cabela’s comes to town,” says Greg Leroy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a non-partisan economic development watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. “All that happens is that money spent at local mom and pop retailers shifts to these big box retailers. When government gives these big box stores tax dollars, they are effectively picking who the winners and losers are going to be.”
Numbers don’t always tell the whole story, counters Larry Whitely, a spokesman for Bass Pro Shops, a privately held company based in Springfield, Missouri. Whitley argues the stores should be viewed as an amenity being added to a community–much like one might view a park or a library.
www .theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/08/why-have-so-many-cities-and-towns-given-away-so-much-money-bass-pro-shops-and-cabelas/2906/
Wow.
The idea to lure businesses with taxpayer money started off innocently enough but now we have gotten to the point the benefit from the business does not outweigh the cost of the subsidy. The business people are smart enough to get the subsidies from multiple sources (city, state, feds). Each source is unaware of what the other source is doing. It is hard to ‘see’ what the total public subsidies are. They also build the subsidy over time. Much like buying a new car where you add a radio for $2/mo, AC for $15/mo, comfort package for $21/mo. After you finish you have added $300/mo to the cost of the car. Bass Pro started by needing just one little thing, then one more little thing. Now, we have built the building, pre-paid for the initial stock and paid for all the landscaping. Many of the benefits the companies promote are years in the future and may or may not come to fruition and may have happened anyway. I.e., if BPT pays to build the Bass Pro building, Bass Pro will come. They will hire people and those people will buy houses in BPT. That is years into the future. Those people would have worked somewhere and the rest is very hypothetical.
Somehow these companies have convinced us they are doing cities a favor by coming. It is good they are coming to BPT, but if they wanted a store in Fairfield County, where else could they have gone? There is an empty movie theater in Milford but that is about their only other choice. That theater location is not near the water and they would be too close to Bob’s Sports in the mall. How long will it take for the state and city to ‘break even’ on the subsidies we gave to Bass Pro? How much damage will Bass Pro do to other businesses in the area?