On April 2, Jackson County voters rejected a proposed 40-year 3/8 cent sales tax that would have funded a new downtown baseball stadium for the Royals as well as renovations for the existing Chiefs stadium at the Truman Sports Complex. The vote wasn’t close, either. Almost three fifths (58%) of voters rejected the measure in a higher-than-usual turnout spring election.
What I found gratifying is that a great deal of voters, regardless of their own political views, seemed to understand that the economic impact claims made by the proponents of stadium subsidies were simply not true. Show-Me Institute analysts have been making this point since our founding.
Read Timothy Lee’s post from 18 years ago, Stadium Proposal Unfair to Taxpayers, and you will see the exact same arguments I made in 2024. The basics of good public policy do not change, they may just take a while to catch on.
