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The post Is the Chiefs Move to Kansas Really a Done Deal? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

How bad is crime in Kansas City? If you believe recent international headlines, we’re a “Mad Max-style hellhole,” a reference to the post-apocalyptic movie franchise. Ouch.

I grant in the piece that the headline came from a news outlet known for being sensationalist, but as Kansas City prepares to host the World Cup in 2026, our international reputation is important.

Speaking to Pete Mundo on KCMO Talk Radio the morning of May 23, Mayor Quinton Lucas, just back from a junket to Qatar, said this [at 2:32]:

Of course the Qataris were very interested in saying, “we can send people over, free of charge, to come help you.” I’ll make sure I have a chat with [KC Police] Chief Stacey Graves and some of the others before we do that, but, [it’s a] well-resourced country.

That statement came right after a discussion about transportation, but Chief Graves does not handle city transportation, nor does she serve on the board of KC2026, the committee formed to organize efforts to host the 2026 FIFA event. It appears the mayors’ understanding was that the Qataris were expressing a security concern and offering to send assistance.

Federal law does not permit foreign nationals to exercise any police powers on U.S. soil. While there may be plenty of coordination among governments and their law enforcement agencies prior to events like the World Cup, I doubt that would be handled by the hosting city’s police chief.

Just as Mayor Lucas would have been in no position to coordinate security with a foreign entity, it’s possible that the Qatari making the offer was in no position to provide it. I don’t know.

What is clear, even if Lucas doesn’t realize the implication of the offer, is that Kansas City is seen internationally as a place that cannot provide public safety to its own citizens or international visitors. That won’t be solved by advertising on buses in London, but by competent management of city resources—something we have yet to see.

The post Is Kansas City a Public Safety Charity Case? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On May 15, 2024, Show-Me Institute Chief Economist Aaron Hedlund joined Pete Mundo on KCMO to break down the latest inflation data and discuss what it means for the Federal Reserve’s next move on interest rates.

Photo credit:

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Photo ID: 2258307915

Photo Contributor: christianthiel.net

The post What Does the Latest Inflation Data Mean for the Fed’s Next Move? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

While the team appreciates its history with Arrowhead, Chiefs president Mark Donovan acknowledged on Tuesday that the franchise has considered other options for when their lease expires in 2031. Donovan said that the team has specifically considered options in Kansas, as it has been pitched stadium offers [by] developers in the state, via Kevin Clark of The Ringer.

Upon seeing what Donovan said, Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas quickly issued a response via Twitter.

“Kansas City has proudly hosted the Chiefs since the early 1960s,” Lucas said. “We look forward to working with the Chiefs, our state of Missouri partners, and local officials to ensure the Chiefs remain home in Kansas City and Missouri for generations to come.”

As a Chiefs fan, the idea of the team leaving the place they’ve called home for 50 years is disappointing. While only Lambeau Field and Soldier Field are older, Arrowhead Stadium is nonetheless an updated and modern (publicly owned) facility that could easily serve fans and the region for many decades to come. But that may be my sentimentality speaking. I was also aghast when the New York Yankees tore down the House That Ruth Built in 2010 and replaced it with the new Yankee Stadium. Old habits die hard.

The good news for Chiefs fans is that the alternate site being discussed is also in the region, albeit across the state line in Kansas. And while public money and tax incentives didn’t come up in the original story, you can rest assured that if the Chiefs made such a move, the package from Kansas would be worth billions. Like I told Pete Mundo the other day, teams wouldn’t threaten to leave if threats didn’t get them more money from taxpayers. It’s certainly the Chiefs’ right to try to get as much money from the public as they can get.

But that doesn’t mean the Kansas City and Missouri governments need to acquiesce. Even if the Chiefs moved to Kansas, the team would continue to be a regional asset and, likely, would still be easily accessible by Interstate 70—in this case, 15 minutes west of downtown in Kansas rather than 15 minutes east of downtown in Missouri. Simultaneously, the Royals have also started talking about a stadium in downtown Kansas City—a good business idea and a bad tax incentive idea! If that’s coming and it gets taxpayer support, it’d put the city on the hook for potentially two new stadiums in the span of about a decade should it keep the Chiefs on Missouri soil, too.

If Kansas wants to spend money to help carry the cost of the region’s professional sports franchises, more power to them. It’s bad policy, of course, but my focus is on Missouri policy and decision making.

As far as Missouri policy is concerned, my perspective for the Chiefs is straightforward: if you want a new stadium in Missouri, build it yourself, as any other business would. I’ll be cheering the Chiefs on wherever they are in the region, and even for a traditionalist like me, I’ll admit that a new stadium may add some excitement to an already exciting team. But there’s no reason to force single moms paying the earnings tax, or frankly any city taxpayer paying any tax, to underwrite such an amenity.

Hail to the Chiefs . . . but with all due respect, pay for the stadium yourself.

The post Hail to the Chiefs! And Pay for Your Own Stadium appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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Earlier this week, Susan Pendergrass wrote a blog post addressing some of the criticisms levied by The Kansas City Star editorial board about a bill that creates an Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) program in Missouri:

Big shock—now that the Missouri legislature has finally created a program to give school choice to students from low-income families and students with disabilities, the misinformation campaign against the program has begun. Case in point: The Kansas City Star editorial board has fired a first shot at the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, and it has gone wide.

On May 19, Show-Me Institute Senior Fellow of Education Policy Michael Q. McShane joined The Pete Mundo Morning Show to set the record straight about Missouri’s new, yet to be signed into law, ESA program.

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The post Setting the Record Straight About Missouri’s New ESA Program appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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City leaders’ influence over policing was confirmed when I spoke to a number of former members of the police board last year. And it was confirmed again when Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith was interviewed this week by KCMO Radio’s Pete Mundo. Smith said (starts at 3:44):

We’re still funded by the city. So we still talk with the city manager and go through the budget process just as every other department head in the city does. We go through this process and talk about, “hey, where can we make gains, where can we not?” The last two years we’ve had additional officers, it’s been a handful.  Sometimes it’s 25; I think last year a dozen. We’re getting some, it’s just slow.

There are plenty of discussions to be had about what ought to be done to help the Kansas City police better respond to rising crime rates, and not all of it can be done through policing. But we know that policing matters and specifically that increasing the number of police reduces homicides. The fact that the number of police in Kansas City has fallen during a years-long spike in homicides is unconscionable. Whatever policies are adopted to combat this increase, it is good to know that those charged with making the decisions understand how policy is made.

The post Kansas City Controls Its Police Department appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The USDA’s cost-benefit analysis found that shifting these two agencies to Kansas City would reduce costs by 11.3 percent, saving taxpayers roughly $300 million (in nominal terms) over the next 15 years. These savings stem primarily from the fact that Kansas City has dramatically cheaper real estate than D.C., as well as marginally lower cost of living. The USDA’s report noted that the median sale price of a home (a major factor in determining cost of living for employees) in Kansas City is $205,400, compared to $420,000 in D.C.

This isn’t a surprise to me; I moved to Kansas City from Washington, D.C. in 2005. Nor should it surprise anyone who read our paper on the competitive advantages of the Kansas City region, as the paper mentions low cost of living as a major advantage for Kansas City.

While we don’t know exactly were in the region the USDA will locate, it was disheartening to read in The Kansas City Star that $26 million in “unspecified” incentives were part of the deal. The authors reported:

Greg LeRoy, executive director of the watchdog group Good Jobs First, accused the USDA of engaging in an Amazon-style selection process that made states compete for the jobs with incentives.

“It’s outrageous that the USDA would run an auction. This is the extreme version of privatized behavior by the federal government. Uncle Sam has no business running auctions, dangling jobs on state and local taxpayers,” he said.

LeRoy said the final competition the USDA is setting up between Kansas and Missouri is reminiscent of how corporations set municipalities against each other after a region has been selected.

“This is classic site location consultant chicanery…This is an ugly, extreme version of Uncle Sam imitating Jeff Bezos. Yuck. If I were a Missouri or Kansas taxpayer, I would never stand for this. And as a federal taxpayer I’m cross-eyed.”

It’s a shame that the USDA encourages such behavior. It’s a shame that the Kansas City region plays ball, and it’s a shame that we’ll now fight among ourselves for the specific USDA location.

I discussed this topic with Pete Mundo this morning on KCMO Talk Radio. Click here to listen to the segment.

The post USDA Moves to Kansas City, Gets Incentives appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That might not be true.

Kansas City Councilmember Scott Wagner appeared on KCMO Talk Radio with host Pete Mundo (Wagner’s segment starts at 5:14) on February 14 and discussed this very point:

Mundo: So [new terminal contractor] Edgemoor is saying that to basically get this deal going in any type of reasonable time frame we need you, Kansas City, to basically loan us money or loan yourself money to get cash on hand to start this project? Is that the deal?

Wagner: Basically that’s the deal and you’ve got really two things. On the one hand [Edgemoor says,] “we’ve got to repay our loan of 23 million dollars,” because they took out a loan to start doing their work. So they’re saying, “We need you to make us whole by giving us $23 million.”

Mundo: That’s absurd, I mean that’s absurd…

Wagner: Well honestly that’s the deal that the city signed last year, which I didn’t vote for, but eight people on the Council did. And they [Edgemoor] were very clear, they said “We’re going to spend $23 million and we expect to be paid for that.”

Mundo: The city put it to a vote, they said there was going to be no taxpayer dollars used for it. And then they agree to this after the vote, that says, “yes we will pay back $23 million?” That’s-that’s not a good look, Councilman.

Wagner: I can’t disagree with what you just said.

Sadly, this sort of bait-and-switch has become commonplace with the new terminal project. As a result, Kansas City is providing a lesson to the country about how not to deal with transparency. Kansas Citians and indeed everyone in the region deserve much better than this.

The post Lies, Damn Lies, and Airport Politics appeared first on Show-Me Institute.