Politicians love it when they can benefit from the emotional connection Americans have with our sports teams. Unfortunately, one of the ways they do that is by handing out subsidies and incentives to pro sports team stadiums, despite all the evidence that they're usually a terrible deal for the community. As the CEA's John Mozena … Continue reading St. Louis Post-Dispatch column: Emotion defeats common sense in St. Louis’s MLS stadium deal
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Des Moines Register Column: Iowans deserve tax credit transparency
Iowa's massive tax credit system costs the state as much every year as all of its state and local government agencies combined spend on mental health and disability services for some of its most vulnerable residents. Is that a good trade-off? Unfortunately, there's no way for Iowa's taxpayers to know for sure, thanks to the … Continue reading Des Moines Register Column: Iowans deserve tax credit transparency
Albany Times-Union column: NY needs new leadership to lure businesses to the state
New York's Empire State Development Corporation is beginning a search for a new CEO, and as the CEA's John Mozena writes in the Albany Times-Union, it's "an opportunity for New York to end its participation in the nationwide economic development race to the bottom." Obviously, simply putting a more forward-looking individual in the CEO's chair … Continue reading Albany Times-Union column: NY needs new leadership to lure businesses to the state
Crain’s Chicago Business column: Economic development deals risk ruining Chicago
In a new column at Crain's Chicago Business, CEA President John Mozena warns Chicagoans that their city's practice of piling fiscal burdens on everyone then exempting a few favored large taxpayers through economic development deals risks throwing the city into a spiral that is all too familiar to other once-great American cities: This spiral happens … Continue reading Crain’s Chicago Business column: Economic development deals risk ruining Chicago
The Guardian: Amazon faces new headache as Nashville deal enrages locals left and right
Economic development policy is an area where free-market advocates like ourselves often share a great deal of common cause with left-wing progressives. We may start with different principles and have a different view of the appropriate roles of businesses and government in a healthy society, but we can all agree that the way big business … Continue reading The Guardian: Amazon faces new headache as Nashville deal enrages locals left and right
