One day Nashville gives away a certain sum of economic incentives to major corporations to get them to come to the city.
The next day, as part of one proposal Metro Council members will soon consider, the city would then have to hand out an equal sum of money for more affordable housing units.
Nashville Metro Council members Fabian Bedne and Colby Sledge are reportedly pushing the idea.
But their fellow council member Steve Glover said the city is broke and taking even more money out of the city’s operations budget is “a double-edged sword, no matter how you slice and dice it.”
“We are to the point where I don’t think we can afford many more incentives,” Glover told The Tennessee Star.
“Frankly all we have done is give away incentives and not had anything in return to be prepared for all those incentives.”
Mark Cunningham, spokesman for the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee, a free market think tank, said city officials have identified the right problem — but they have the wrong solution.
“The whole idea of these incentives is to make your economy better. A lot of times you can make it more affordable for people to live and shop, but this does not accomplish any of the things you are looking for,” Cunningham told The Star.
“(With this proposal) you make it more expensive to live here. It makes the cost of living higher because the people who are poor have to pay (for) this through our sales taxes and our property taxes. We are bankrupt as a city. There is no way to get around this.”
As The Tennessean reported, Bedne and Sledge proposed their legislation as Metro Council members consider a $15 million incentive package for Amazon to locate a hub downtown.
“The ordinance would require Metro government provide a contribution “of an equivalent amount” to the Barnes Fund for Affordable Housing upon the annual appropriation of an economic and community development grant to a company,” the paper reported.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
[…] This claim, despite the fact that Metro Council Member told The Tennessee Star that the city is broke. […]
[…] The Tennessee Star reported this month, Metro Council member Steve Glover said the city is broke. He said taking even […]
[…] As The Tennessee Star reported, Nashville would have to hand out the same amount of money for more affordable housing units as it gives to major corporations to get them to come to the city. […]
Megan Barry was the proud progressive who announced the the Barnes Fund for Affordable Housing as one of her accomplishments. It is a flat-out socialist program that doesn’t really fix the corrupt system of entitlements but only adds to the suffering of the city.
Mayor Briley (Barry 2.0), his commie cohorts and the rhino republican chamber of commerce are running hard to win the race to make Nashville another crappy big city with little quality of life except for the self righteous wealthy elitists who think they know what is best for the rest of us. It’s time to take my hard-earned money out of Nashville city bonds while the getting’s good.