Is the City Foundry Just Moving Vegetables Around the Plate?
When you were a kid, did you ever push your vegetables around your plate hoping that the different placement would...
Medicaid Expansion Ruling, Special Session and the Cost of Tax Subsides
This week, David Stokes, Patrick Ishmael, Susan Pendergrass and Elias Tsapelas join Zach Lawhorn to discuss the recent ruling on...
Residential TIF Versus School Districts
The St. Louis TIF Commission approved a second phase of the City Foundry TIF project by a vote of 5...
Tax Subsidy Spurious—St. Louis Grift
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones is giving me hope with her more disciplined approach to tax subsidies in the City...
SMI Podcast: The Session Ends, Mayor Jones Vetoes and KC Makes a $43 Million Change to Police Budget
Susan Pendergrass, Patrick Ishmael and David Stokes discuss the end of the Missouri legislative session, the “pass it now, fix...
Remember This: The Charter School Destruction Playbook
Imagine you wanted to open a new restaurant, but in order to do so, every restaurant in a five-mile radius...
Live Event! Media Matters: The Impact of Storytelling on Culture
Join us on Monday, June 14 (Flag Day) for an in-person presentation by Lee Habeeb on The Impact of Storytelling...
Here’s A Crazy Idea: Tax Yourself.
Versions of this commentary were published in the Springfield News-Leader and the Columbia Tribune. Longtime United States Senator and Chairman...
How Much Does Your Local Public School Spend?
It comes as a surprise to most people who don’t follow education policy closely that we have never really known...
How to Put Missouri on a Faster Path to Recovery
Hoping to prepare for a busy summer of reopening, several restaurants last week in St. Louis’s Central West End held...
The New Mayor Vetoes Two Tax Subsidies
In a welcome development, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones vetoed two newly proposed tax subsidy bills. One is a small...
A Huge Win for Missouri Families
Thankfully, the Missouri Legislature has recognized that one size does not fit all when it comes to education. The House...
PACE Loans Are Out of Line
A decade ago, Missouri created the Property Assessment Clean Energy (PACE) loan program to help homeowners and businesses get loans...
Jackson County Assessment Facts, Part 3
This is the third in a series of posts on assessment practices in Jackson County, Missouri. It comes a mere...
Missourians May Lose Their Homes Because of State-Supported Loans
As reported by ProPublica’s Jeremy Kohler and Haru Coryne, more than 100 homes with PACE loans in metropolitan Kansas City...
Tides Turning Against TIF?
Public support is growing for efforts to protect local funding from bad tax-increment financing (TIF) deals, but will the elected...
We Have the Money. Let’s Expand Education Options for All Students
In the latest round of federal stimulus, Missouri will receive about $2 billion in funding for public education. Of this,...
Earnings Taxes and St. Louis’s Catch 1%.
A version of this commentary was published in the St. Louis Business Journal. As voters in the City of St. Louis...
St. Louis Voters Support School Choice
The Missouri Association for Public Charter Schools has released a new poll measuring the opinions of voters in St. Louis....
More on the Earnings Tax
We have written several times about the earnings tax in recent weeks and its detrimental economic effects. On Tuesday, voters...
