One of these reforms is a subject of contention right now in St. Louis. In the 1940s, the office of the City of St. Louis Personnel Director, in charge of hiring most city employees, was made almost entirely independent of elected officials. That was understandable at the time, as that was a period of significant political corruption in American cities.

Over time, though, a wise move to limit corruption has petrified—as so often happens in bureaucracies—into a position designed to protect the status quo. Between 1942 and 2021, only four people held the job. Yes, they may have been very good at it. But it was inevitable that they became protectors of the system and of the other people within the system, particularly other city employees who live in the same social and cultural circles. If they weren’t there to protect the status quo, why else would a retired personnel director be taking advantage of intricate knowledge of city charter rules to prevent the current mayor from getting her person into the position now?

Former Personnel Director Rick Frank, who held the job for 17 years before retiring in 2021, has reapplied for his old position. And the current director, Sonya Jenkins-Gray, on Nov. 15 granted his request to be placed on an eligible reemployment list, according to Frank and a copy of the letter he shared with the Post-Dispatch.

That, Frank said, means the mayor would have to at least interview him should the personnel director position open up. And she wouldn’t be able to pick an interim for the job while that list exists.

“If her intent were to put a provisional appointment in there, there’s a problem per the charter and the rules,” he said.

Remember that a major city employee union sued to prevent Mayor Jones from being able to select her chosen person for the position during a prior vacancy.

H.L. Mencken said that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” When people vote for change, the newly elected officials deserve the chance to institute that change, within reason. That includes putting the people they want into important positions. The voters can then judge those elected officials later at the ballot box.

Civil service rules preventing mass firings after every election are good, in that democracy functions better with such rules than without them. Rules that give local government personnel directors some independence from politics in hiring are also good.

However, when these rules ossify into a system where a former city employee applies for a job in a move that looks as if he is simply trying to obstruct the hiring decisions of the mayor, I’d say the rules have gone too far and need to be changed.

The post Civil Service Reforms Can Go Too Far appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But regardless of what is being celebrated, events like these point to a vibrant city.

Sadly, this may not be the case on the other side of the state in St. Louis.

On July 25, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones was on hand to help hype the “Q in the Lou” barbecue festival, scheduled to be held on the grounds of the Gateway Arch in early September. Jason Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis, a non-profit dedicated to revitalizing the city, was triumphal in saying that bringing this “signature national festival back to downtown St Louis is showing how this community is answering that call taking action and making us stronger.”

Apparently not.

Q in the Lou has been canceled. According the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Sean Hadley, one of the organizers of the event, confirmed the cancellation Monday afternoon, citing trouble garnering corporate sponsorship and VIP ticket sales — and public safety concerns disputed by the mayor’s office.

“We’re seeing a lack of support,” Hadley said. “It’s not there.”

This truly is a shame. St. Louis has a real problem with public safety and the public perception. Subsidized events and buildings won’t change that. It can only be solved by the slow and difficult work of public policy, including increasing public safety, keeping the city clean and orderly, maintaining infrastructure, and doing all of this in a cost-efficient manner.

There is no shortcut, no matter how good the ribs are.

The post STL Q Down the Loo appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

My purpose here is simply to respond to one statement in the article by St. Louis’s Mayor Jones:

“I urge those who want to eliminate the earnings tax to show me their plan to replace it, their pro forma on these so-called ‘fiscal cliffs,’ and why cities with much higher earnings tax rates continue to grow,” Jones said in a statement.

I would like to remind people that, as for a plan to replace the earnings tax, the PFM Group out of Philadelphia has provided St. Louis with multiple, enormous reports on fiscal options for the city. Having read these studies, I assure you they go into great detail on these topics. If the city and its leaders aren’t serious about considering and incorporating these recommendations, among others, that’s on the city.

Do some cities with earnings taxes continue to grow? Of course they can. Some cities, like, say, New York City, have qualities and advantages that help them overcome the harms of local income taxes and continue to grow nevertheless. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it doesn’t mean local earnings (also known as income or wage) taxes don’t harm cities. Nobody is saying that a city can’t grow if it has an earnings tax. The claim—backed up by evidence—is that they would grow faster without one.

You don’t have to take our word for it (but you should). In Triumph of the City, Harvard economist Ed Glaeser states: “The indirect effect of a local income tax is to encourage richer citizens and businesses to leave.” He cited this study, in which the authors determined that, among other findings, “We estimate that between 1971 and 2001 Philadelphia lost 172,889 jobs because of the increase in city wage tax rates.” (Similar effects were found for New York City.)

It’s one thing to say the city is not in a position to immediately drop the earnings tax in one fell swoop. That’s a defensible position. It’s another to deny that it harms economic growth. That’s not defensible. The worst part, though, is watching the city enact legislation and pass constant tax subsidies that make it more dependent on the earnings tax, instead of trying to be less dependent on it over time. The city has chosen to put itself in this position, and that is regrettable.

The post Yes, Mayor Jones, the Earnings Tax Really Does Hinder Economic Growth appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

• Nuclear War
• Total Surrender
• Recommended State Department policy

The understanding of the joke is that whatever policy or ideas elected officials want to enact, it is the government employees—the bureaucrats—who have to carry it out. Too often, the bureaucrats carry it out in a manner that benefits them, not the elected officials or the public. (I care more about the latter.)

The City of St. Louis is experiencing a problem like that right now, with its efforts to combine its three 911 systems into one. Consolidating 911 centers should be one of the low-hanging fruits for service sharing among local governments. There are numerous examples of it benefitting communities in Missouri. Unfortunately, while many efforts have succeeded, a few have been stalled due to resistance from local bureaucrats.

The problems in St. Louis are all the more confusing because this effort is entirely within the same city government. In theory, it should be easier to implement service sharing in one government rather than sharing 911 services across different governments (which isn’t really that hard, either.) But, shockingly, the various city employee unions have thus far been able to stall the reform efforts. The mayor’s plans to consolidate and improve the 911 system have been blocked, thus far, by the unions representing the dispatchers who are currently within different departments. From the article:

One union represents police dispatchers, and another represents EMS and fire dispatchers. The unions have demanded bargaining over any dispatcher cross-training. Uncertainty about which union would represent a combined dispatcher position slowed attempts by Mayor Tishaura Jones and her former public safety director, Dan Isom, to allow dispatchers to handle all types of emergency calls.

The unions complained Jones and Isom’s plans for consolidation were made without consulting them and that the changes in job duties were clearly something that should be covered in contract negotiations. [emphasis mine]

Missouri attempted major public-sector union reforms a few years ago. While some reforms were passed into law, a lawsuit unfortunately led to the reforms being overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court.

St. Louis has public sector unions delaying improvements to a system that would improve the city’s currently terrible 911 system and spend tax dollars more efficiently. But hey, fiefdoms have to be protected, right?

FDR was right about public sector unions. They shouldn’t exist.

The post Looking For Bureaucratic Efficiencies in All the Wrong Places appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In July 2010, Missouri politicians joined the state’s economic development agency to announce the awarding of $17 million in state tax incentives, along with $39 million in local tax subsidies, to the Mamtek project in Moberly. The project called for making artificial sweetener using a process that would start in China and finish at a new plant in Moberly, creating 600 local jobs here. There was just one problem—it was all a scam.

It may seem unfair of me to criticize a government agency for falling victim to a criminal conspiracy, albeit one that really wasn’t that sophisticated, but government economic development agencies are a catch-22 for taxpayers. When they do a bad job—as they did in Mamtek—they waste our tax money. As with the St. Louis Marketplace or the Olde Towne Plaza in Ballwin, we can list plenty of private business projects government had no reason to get involved in but did, to the detriment of taxpayers. But we can only wish they always did a bad job. It’s when they do their jobs right that taxpayers and average citizens really get burned.

When economic development officials do their jobs right, all they are really doing is subsidizing economic activity that likely would have happened anyway for the benefit of politically connected companies. As the old joke goes, economic development officials are great at creating jobs for other economic development officials. For everyone else, not so much. For all their skillful use of political buzzwords and claiming credit when none is deserved, it remains true that “government is a bad venture capitalist,” to quote President Obama’s economic advisor, Larry Summers. Summers was being polite. Government, in the form of local, state, and federal economic development agencies, is a terrible venture capitalist. It’s not that government officials don’t get their bets right often enough; it’s that they actively get them wrong because economic development officials are heavily influenced by the political incentives to reward supporters of the politicians who employ them. A short-term political payoff is more important than long-term success.

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones came into office two years ago pledging to make changes to the city’s economic development process. To a small degree, her administration has reduced the subsidies it is giving out to companies, and for that she deserves credit. But they also figured out a way to somehow make a bad process even worse by imposing an “economic justice” imperative on it. So now, instead of listening to development officials fabricate how their corporate welfare led to jobs, growth, and so on, we get the additional pleasure of hearing how tax subsidies lead to more “equity.” Death can’t come fast enough.

Economist Dick Netzer mocked the exaggerated claims of success made by economic development officials when he wrote, “Who needs oil wells, when a state can be another Kuwait just by increasing the budget of a tiny agency?” Claims of subsidy successes often border on the absurd. The author once heard a Clay County economic development official claim that “All of the growth” in the town of Liberty—a fast growing, suburban community north of Kansas City, the likes of which have been growing across the nation for decades—was due to a tax-increment financing (TIF) package they passed. Chesterfield officials talk about the Valley TIF there in much the same way, as if suburbanization hadn’t existed until Missouri’s TIF law was passed in the late 1980s.

The self-aggrandizement of the economic development industry would be understandable if the system worked, but it doesn’t. The East-West Gateway Council of Governments (EWG) did a major study of TIF and other subsidies a decade ago and concluded that they created one job for every $370,000 in tax subsidies. That is a terrible return on the subsidy, as EWG stated. Economists Alan Peters and Peter Fisher studied tax incentives closely and concluded that they work about 10 percent of the time and are simply a waste of money the other 90 percent. They added that, like the Clay County officials mentioned above, economic development officials often credit all new employment and growth to tax subsidies. Yet our region continues to pass out tax subsidies like other people’s candy, evidenced by the atrocious decision of the St. Louis County TIF commission to approve $300 million in subsidies for the “blighted” part of Chesterfield just last month.

If we really wanted to help our community grow, residents of the St. Louis-area could get no better gift than the elimination of state and local economic development agencies. They are a blight on capitalism and an actively harmful influence on the civic and economic life of our state.

The post St. Louis Should Eliminate Its Economic Development Agencies appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This isn’t that complicated. The new St. Louis city fireman’s pension board was created because the old one was dominated by union interests who made it incredibly generous for firemen and civilian employees of the department. One of those civilian employees received a half-million-dollar (!!!) cash payout upon her retirement, on top of her generous pension. As this recent Post-Dispatch story explains, the union trustees on the new board have implemented draconian changes to the pension funds, things such as cancelling the annual pension board training trip to Key West. Cue the outrage; from the Post story:

Paul Payne, the city’s budget director, said going to an industry conference in South Florida looked less like education than vacation. And he told Kenny Mitchell, a firefighter trustee who wanted to go, just that.

Meeting minutes relay what happened next: “Trustee Mitchell responded to Trustee Payne with a profane remark.”

I’ve been to Key West many times. It is uniquely wonderful for many things. Pension board training is not one of them.

The St. Louis Board of Aldermen just passed, once again, a bill to return the pension plan to the control of the fireman’s union instead of the new city board that runs it for the benefit of both firemen and taxpayers. That means having a pension system that pays fireman what they deserve, but also considers the interests of the taxpayers at the same time. It doesn’t mean pension training trip to Key West, nor does it mean half-million-dollar cash payouts on top of the pensions. What does St. Louis City’s budget director think it means?

The [proposed] move will consolidate pension oversight under a firefighter-run board that spent double what a city-run panel paid for administration last year. And Budget Director Paul Payne says it would be a first step toward taking the pension system back to where it was a decade ago, when years of rubber-stamping benefit increases led to a budget crisis and forced painful cuts.

“Their history,” Payne said of the firefighters, “is not one of saving money.”

Mayor Jones has vetoed the legislation, just as Mayor Krewson vetoed it previously, and as Mayor Slay would likely recommend after having spent considerable time, effort, and political capital during his term making these necessary reforms in the first place. Good for Mayor Jones. Pension funds should be run for the benefit of those government employees promised good benefits in accordance with the overall fiscal health of the city and its taxpayers, not just one of them.

The post Taxpayers Getting Burned appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Less funny are the continuing efforts by the St. Louis City fireman’s union to return to the extremely generous and biased-against-taxpayers pension system of the past. After years of political fighting, the Slay administration successfully revised the fireman’s pension system in 2012. The new plan put control of the fireman’s pension under a board of city appointees— under the old system, the pension was run by the fire department and the union itself. What was wrong with the old system? Well, nobody was watching out for the taxpayer’s interests, and they are the ones who paid for everything.

Ever since those changes were made, the union has been “never stopping” in its efforts to get the old system back. How generous was the old system? Well, the former director of the fireman’s pension system, Vicky Grass (who was subsequently elected to the board of aldermen), received a cash payout of $579,000 when she retired in 2015, on top of her monthly $4,870 monthly pension. That’s $579,000 in taxpayer dollars! What did Ms. Grass think of the changes to the new system?

“The new system is not as good as the one we had,” Grass said.

Well, I would think not if you were enjoying the benefits of the old system.

But the city and taxpayers are not being exploited by the union now, and firemen are still receiving the fair benefits and pension that we all agree they deserve. How much money has city government been able to save with the pension reform? This article from 2015 documents the savings the city experienced shortly after making the pension changes:

The city pays when there is a shortfall. In 2013, the city pumped $20 million into the system. Pension reforms have since reduced the city’s liability. Paul Payne, the city’s budget director, said the city paid $1 million into the system in 2015. And it’s not expected to pay anything in 2016.

Mayor Krewson vetoed the attempt last year to change the pension system back to the old system, and hopefully Mayor Jones will do the same if it comes to that. Honestly, it should not come to that at all, but this is a classic example of a special interest group carrying outsized influence with elected officials—in this case, members of the board of aldermen the union helped put into office in the first place. Controlling pension costs for public employee unions is a key responsibility of local government. The City of St. Louis deserves credit for the reforms it made, and those reforms need to be kept in place.

The post The Fireman’s Union Never Stops Never Stopping appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The proposed route received some tweaks earlier this month, and now is set to run from Natural Bridge Road at Grand Boulevard in north city down Jefferson Avenue past the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) headquarters and the site of the new MLS stadium. This new plan has an estimated price tag of between $600 and $800 million and would be financed primarily through federal funds. However, like the ill-advised KC Streetcar expansion, expanding MetroLink would be a waste.

The first and most obvious problem with the proposal is ridership. The project is touting the ability to connect impoverished areas of North Saint Louis with centers of commerce in places such as downtown and the Central West End. However, project leaders have yet to put out research supporting this claim. Considering that fewer and fewer people are commuting downtown for work, there are reasons to be skeptical of this assertion.

As a longtime Saint Louis sports fan, I understand that MetroLink can be a convenient way to get downtown and avoid the stress and costs of parking. However, building an additional stop and line to service the new MLS stadium is completely unnecessary, considering its proximity to Union Station­­­–it is only 0.2 miles away, or a five-minute walk. Instead of changing lines to access the dedicated stadium stop, soccer fans taking the train downtown would be better off exiting at Union Station and making the short walk over.

As with the KC Streetcar expansion I wrote about in a recent blog post, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a questionable MetroLink expansion comes at the expense of bus systems.  Saint Louis Metro has been forced to cut lines amid staffing shortages, an issue which is predicted to persist into next year. Metro Bus is the primary means of transportation for roughly 22,000 St. Louis commuters, compared to only 4,000 commuters who primarily use MetroLink.

If St. Louis wishes to use federal money to improve public transit, it should improve the bus system and invest in more efficient types of public transportation, like Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Unfortunately, policymakers’ tendency to chase shiny objects will likely leave Saint Louis with a defunct trolley, an oversized light rail system, and thousands of unhappy bus riders.

The post Even with an Updated Route, MetroLink Expansion is a Waste appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I find this very troubling.

Let’s backtrack a bit. Alderwoman Pihl, and Mayor Jones, have been very explicit about their desire to create more affordable housing in St. Louis. (St. Louis doesn’t actually have an affordable housing problem, and even if it did, government low-income housing programs would not be the way to remedy it; but that is a post for another day.)

In pursuit of that objective, Alderwoman Pihl appears to have a habit of “requesting” donations to affordable housing from developers who have projects in her ward. According to the Post-Dispatch story, Pihl also “requested,” and received, $1.8 million from the Steve Smith City Foundry in return for her support for its development project adjacent to the Aptitude site.

Now, I have made no secret of my distaste for the tax subsidies that municipalities routinely grant to developers that supposedly incentivize them to build certain projects. And I suppose if St. Louis is going to continue that practice, it makes sense to get as much as possible from the developers in return.

Yet, if the Post-Dispatch article is to be believed, Aptitude isn’t requesting any tax subsidies, which suggests that the alderwoman is using her control over development in her ward to exact funds from a private developer—not to pay for public expenses directly associated with the Aptitude project, but as a cost of doing business in the city.

In my opinion, that’s wrong. If the Aptitude project is consistent with previous rezoning requests and similar changes within that area of the city, it ought to be approved without requiring any supposedly voluntary contribution. Most importantly, the project will add housing options to the city, which will lead to an increase in affordable housing, even though the housing being built in this project is on the more expensive side.

I’m not suggesting that the alderwoman is making these requests to feather her own financial nest. I think she’s trying to accomplish a goal consistent with the duties of her office.  But practices like this are characteristic of countries without the rule of law; once they become routine, they lead inevitably to threats and backroom deals and eventually outright corruption.

Here are a few questions for our leaders. Why is it necessary to alternate between bribing private corporations with tax subsidies and extorting “contributions” from them? Why should private development projects, or public goods like affordable housing, turn on the success or failure of deals negotiated by individual lawmakers? Might it instead be possible to improve the city by creating good policies, incorporating them into law, and applying the law consistently for the benefit of the public?

In other words, why not try some good government for a change?

The post Asking Developers to Make “Voluntary Donations” is Troubling appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

From the story:

The city’s new mayor vetoed two developer tax breaks that she said were too generous. And then she held up final approval of incentive packages for two other projects that had long enjoyed almost unwavering political support — the City Foundry food hall complex and another phase of development in the Cortex tech district.

We have commended these changes to the old way of doing business. For too long, the city has pumped subsidies into the parts of the city that need them the least. So, points given for being more disciplined with the subsidies.

However, it seems that the quick and easy way for developers to get the subsidies they want is simply to make a “donation” to affordable housing. From the story (emphasis and note added):

Of the deals negotiated so far by the Jones administration, a theme has emerged: developers who want incentives are likely to be pushed to include a contribution to affordable housing.

• The City Foundry deal required the developer to contribute $1.8 million to the city’s affordable housing trust fund, which helps finance affordable projects around the city. [Three other examples follow in the article.]

We love our subsidies in Missouri for affordable/low-income housing. At the state level, low-income housing tax credits have been abused for years. Now the city’s affordable housing trust fund is all the rage. But you know what? St. Louis (and Missouri) don’t have an affordable housing issue. In fact, a report just came out that says that St. Louis is the only metro area in the country where rents are declining. From the report:

There is one outlier among major American cities bucking this trend. Rents fell 4 percent in St. Louis, and it was the only metro to see a decrease in rent in October compared to a year earlier.

The low housing costs here are a result of many factors, both good (limited land-use regulations) and bad (high crime, etc.). But increasing the subsidies for affordable housing is the least of our region’s needs. And that, come to think of it, may be exactly the point. Solving crime in a high-crime area is very hard. Addressing housing costs in an area with low housing costs is, well, easy.

There are many good reasons for the City of St. Louis to substantially tighten up the tax subsidy process. Using it as a pressure point to get added “donations” to a fund that purports to solve the one problem the city doesn’t have is not one of them.

The post Changes to Tax Incentives in the City of St. Louis? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

911 call centers are ripe for consolidation in Missouri. A number of cities and counties throughout the state have already done this. There are obvious technological and staffing efficiencies with larger 911 systems, without any of the desire for the personal connections that can come from a smaller entity. No one cares if the 911 operator yells “Norm!” and is happy to speak to you when you call; people just want a fast, professional response.

While there is a slight difference between cities merging their municipal centers with other cities (or counties) and the City of St. Louis combining its own two call systems, I think the similarities dominate. Hopefully, we will see many more service-sharing agreements like this around the state.

The post Nevada 911! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Chesterfield is a vibrant, popular, and growing area. The idea that tax subsidies are needed for businesses there is absurd. So, what does St. Louis County do when a new studio wants to build a production facility there? Well, give away the store, of course. This week the county council unanimously passed a subsidy worth between $88 and $130 million for the new business in one of the most successful and wealthy parts of the state. This is insanity.

In years past, I was honored to be able to testify in favor of tax-increment financing (TIF) reform before the state legislature alongside other reform supporters from Dierbergs Markets. So, who is now asking for a major TIF in Crestwood, another prosperous St. Louis County suburb with no need to give away tax subsidies? Dierbergs, of course. It wants $17 million in subsidies to open a grocery store just down the block from a competing grocery store. Crestwood giving away this money would be insanity.

Hopefully, the St. Louis County TIF Commission will reject this wasteful TIF, just as County Executive Page’s TIF appointees admirably did with the Maryland Heights floodplain TIF monstrosity that was rejected in early 2020.

Finally, despite Mayor Jones’ efforts, St. Louis City commissions keep approving subsidy upon subsidy, including a new $92 million subsidy for a downtown hotel that already received a separate TIF a few years back. If the first subsidy doesn’t work, just give them another, I guess. Hopefully, Mayor Jones will oppose this proposal, too.

Just like the Fast & Furious franchise, the plotlines for tax subsidies keep getting recycled over and over. Recent tax subsidy vetoes and rejections by the Jones and Page administrations give me some hope, but sometimes it feels as if the cruise ship is sinking and all one has is a small bucket to bail with.

The post Tax Subsidy Spurious—St. Louis Grift appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

The post SMI Podcast: The Session Ends, Mayor Jones Vetoes and KC Makes a $43 Million Change to Police Budget appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The main veto was for a new 300-unit apartment complex right by St. Louis University. The new apartments will be marketed toward students, of which there are many nearby because it is right next to a major university. The developers were asking for a 10-year, 95 percent tax abatement. A 95 percent tax abatement on an $80 million project is a lot of money for the developers, and that money will inevitably be offset by higher taxes on other residents and businesses. The idea that a development such as this at this location needs a huge tax subsidy is absurd. I commend Mayor Jones for these two vetoes and hope it sends a signal for the rest of her administration.

Don’t get me wrong. I think taxes in the City of St. Louis are too high. But if Mayor Jones and the new generation of city leaders can substantially reduce tax subsidies for the lucky few and expand the tax base by doing so, then we might be able to get a tax cut for everyone. If the taxes on commercial development are too high, then lower the commercial property tax surcharge for all businesses. Giving away generous tax abatements to some (who, shockingly, tend to be politically connected) is not the solution.

This is a positive step for Mayor Jones’ term.

The post The New Mayor Vetoes Two Tax Subsidies appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

[A]lternatives need to be examined because the tax totals a third of the city’s general revenue. “That is just unsustainable,” she said. “We need to see how we can diversify our sources of funds to make us not so dependent on the earnings tax should the voters ever decide that they don’t want to pay it anymore.”

She is absolutely right. The City of St. Louis needs to get serious about leaning less on the earnings tax, for a variety of reasons. The newest reason, resulting from the pandemic, is the increase in working from home. The city is, unfortunately, attempting to claim that people working from home in the suburbs still have to pay the tax. Through legislation or litigation, I hope that this new and intentionally improper implementation of the law is prohibited. Nevertheless, the long-term impacts from increased working from home on the earnings tax in St. Louis will likely be substantial.

And yes, voters may one day (Tuesday was clearly not that day) decide they want to phase it out, and the city should move in a direction to encourage that, not discourage it. The single most important thing the City of St. Louis can do is reduce the enormous tax subsidies it gives out each year. As stated in our recent op-ed in the St. Louis Business Journal, the city gives out about $70 million per year in subsidies. Expanding the tax base by letting those subsidies expire and not granting new ones is the single best way to phase out the earnings tax without large tax increases elsewhere.

Even if one thinks that the City of St. Louis (and Kansas City) should maintain the earnings tax, not depending on it so much would be a smart thing to do.

The post More on the Earnings Tax appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post ‘The Cartel’ School Choice Panel Discussion appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This seems like as good a reason as any to remind everyone about the Show-Me Institute’s School Choice Week event tomorrow. The Show-Me Institute is sponsoring a showing of The Cartel at the Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar) in Saint Louis on Thursday, Jan. 27, at 6:30 p.m. (registration starts at 6:00).

The documentary (you can watch the trailer at the film’s website) examines the failures of New Jersey’s public school system, which spends more per student than that of any other state but is still home to a frighteningly large number of failing schools. Director Bob Bowdon traces how money is frequently diverted from classrooms, and flows instead to administrators, union coffers, and political patronage positions. Although Bowdon focuses on New Jersey, the problems he uncovers are often the same as those we find here in Missouri and across America.

The special screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring two Missouri state representatives at the forefront of the education issue in our state: Rep. Scott Dieckhaus (R), the chairman of the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education, and Rep. Tishaura Jones (D), assistant minority floor leader and also a member of the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education. They will share their views on the issues that come before this important committee, and on which of those may find their way into legislation during the 2011 session.

The event is free, but if you would like to come, please RSVP to our public relations representative, William Kay.

The post The Case for School Choice appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The documentary (you can watch the trailer at the film’s website) examines the failures of New Jersey’s public school system, which spends more per student than that of any other state but is still home to a frighteningly large number of failing schools. Director Bob Bowdon traces how money is frequently diverted from classrooms, and flows instead to administrators, union coffers, and political patronage positions. Although Bowdon focuses on New Jersey, the problems he uncovers are often the same as those we find here in Missouri and across America.

The special screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring two Missouri State representatives at the forefront of the education issue in our state: Rep. Scott Dieckhaus (R), the chairman of the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education, and Rep. Tishaura Jones (D), assistant minority floor leader and also a member of the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education. They will share their views on the issues that come before this important committee, and on which of those may find their way into legislation during the 2011 session.

The event is free, but if you would like to come, please RSVP to our public relations representative, William Kay.

The post Celebrate National School Choice Week With Us on January 27! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.