The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee published its annual Pork Report on Wednesday, highlighting the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars this past year across the Volunteer State.
Examples of “offensive” and “wasteful” uses of Tennessee taxpayer money highlighted in the 2023 Pork Report include the nearly $5 million taxpayer subsidy given to benefit the California burger chain In-N-Out’s move to Tennessee, large property tax increases in multiple counties, and the City of Memphis giving out over $1 million to a TV show on the verge of cancellation.
More examples highlighted in the report include the City of Knoxville’s $100,000 attempt to circumvent open records laws, the continuing costs of Hamilton County’s purchase of the McDonald Farm, and the state’s $200 million handout to help move the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.
Commenting on this year’s Pork Report, Beacon Vice President of Strategy and Communications Mark Cunningham said, “There is enough pork in the state this year to feed a sumo wrestling competition.”
“The Pork Report continuously shows the risk to taxpayers for these wasteful projects, including correctly predicting the additional taxpayer expense from Hamilton County taxpayers for the purchase of the McDonald Farm. Hopefully, this year’s report will make politicians and bureaucrats think long and hard about how they spend tax dollars in the future,” Cunningham added.
The Beacon Center utilizes a variety of sources to compile its annual Port Report, including state and local budgets, media reports, state audits, and independent research conducted by the think tank.
Last year’s Pork Report heavily focused on the waste of taxpayer money through the funding and proposals of many sports stadiums across the state.
Only one sports-related policy was cited in this year’s Pork Report, which was the City of Bristol offering the Bristol State Liners, a Virginia collegiate summer league baseball team, $5 million in tax dollars to move to the Volunteer State.
“Governments should stop throwing taxpayers curveballs and giving public funds to build or improve private sports teams’ facilities. If there were real economic benefits to be realized from these deals, private investment would step up to the plate,” the report says.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “In-N-Out Burger Restaurant” by In-N-Out Burger.
This is why Gov Lee is as worthless as 2 tits on a boar hogs ass.
Typical politician who shouts I am a Christian , you can trust me….
Sickening how they invoke our Lords name in the name of getting votes, then at the same time screw the working man by handouts to undeserving private companies like this. Taxpayer money should only be used for government use and not private handouts where most likely KICKBACKS are involved !
Abuse of the public trust by ignorant and incompetent politicians like those in Farragut Tn is bad enough. When it is done with malice and for thought, it is our civic responsibility to remove the people from public office. These people have no intention of changing their bad behavior.