The city of Bloomington’s second annual “Pride Celebration” — billed as a family-friendly event — saw drag queens receiving cash tips from young children and a giveaway of condoms and “Plan B” pills.
Minnesota photojournalist Rebecca Brannon posted to Twitter several pictures from the Saturday event, including three pictures showing kids tipping drag performers with cash.
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A new documentary profiles examples of corporate welfare that shortchanged taxpayers and business owners, including in Memphis, where city officials bestowed a generous tax break upon IKEA. This documentary, Corporate Welfare: Where’s the Outrage?, debuted on public television and YouTube late last month. Free To Choose Media Executive Editor and Cato Senior Fellow Johan Norberg hosted the documentary.
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Memphis officials gave IKEA nearly $10 million in incentives to set up shop there, but company officials reportedly can’t do what they promised. So, IKEA officials are giving up some of their previously approved 11-year tax abatement, according to The Daily Memphian. IKEA did not hire the number of jobs or pay the level of wages it promised city and county officials in exchange for lesser property tax payments, the website went on to say. “As was indicated in IKEA’s most recent Annual Report to EDGE for the year-ending Dec. 31, 2018, while IKEA met the Capital Investment commitment, it was unable to meet the Job and Wage commitment,” The Daily Memphian quoted attorney Chad Wilgenbusch as saying. “IKEA ended 2018 with 147 employees on site, 28 jobs short of its commitment to bring 175 new jobs to Memphis. Employees were making a median average wage of $36,944 at the end of 2018, $4,067 short of the IKEA’s commitment to pay employees $41,011 without benefits.” According to localmemphis.com, the Economic Development Growth Engine, which awarded the incentives, says “process standards would reduce their 11-year PILOT by a year.” “IKEA was originally awarded a PILOT for 11 years, 10 months for real…
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Memphis taxpayers may soon know less about the companies that want corporate welfare in exchange for expanding or relocating their business to Memphis, according to The Memphis Commercial Appeal. This, the paper went on to say, depends on a pending opinion from the state attorney general and how he interprets Tennessee’s open records law, the paper went on to say. That pending opinion will weigh in on whether Memphis officials can keep hidden three pieces of information from the public — the name of the company applying for an incentive, its parent company, and its address. EDGE board members, of course, will know who the company is, the paper reported. “Instead, a ‘code name’ would be used to identify the company,” The Commercial Appeal said. “Other information such as the industry, the number of jobs the company plans to create and the average pay of each job would still be released when it is provided to the board.” Mark Beutelschies, legal counsel for EDGE, told the paper EDGE board members will still need all the information to make sure there are no conflicts of interest. “We want to get an explicit understanding from the state that if we held these…
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There’s a lot of tussling going on in Memphis as the city’s movers and shakers debate the best ways to disburse corporate welfare. According to the Memphis Daily News, a seven-member city group is studying the effectiveness of EDGE – the city-county Economic Development Growth Engine. EDGE hands out tax abatement incentives. Members of this group want to know if they should take the city out of EDGE and create a city Industrial Development Board to make things more efficient, the website reported. Members of the group met for the first time this week. Council member Reid Hedgepeth said economic development interests need a “czar” to help run things. “Now is the time to streamline the process so that we have this czar that can come and say, ‘Memphis can do this deal. I say we can compete at this level. We’re ready. Here’s the application, Turn it in. Let’s go,’” the website quoted Boyd as saying. “Right now, at the rate we are going, everybody says ‘that’s not my responsibility’ or ‘I can’t do that’ or ‘I didn’t know we wanted to turn that in and compete on this deal.’ Time out on excuses.” Eric Miller, with the Greater…
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Think tank Beacon Center of Tennessee is one of three finalists for a national award in the category of Best Issue Campaign. The Beacon Center was nominated for its award for a mini-documentary titled “Rigged: The Injustice of Corporate Welfare.” The Bob Williams Awards for Outstanding Policy Achievement celebrate state think tanks that develop credible research to help states create free-market solutions with national impact. The Bob Williams Awards are hosted by the State Policy Network. The national nonprofit promotes “a vision of an America where personal freedom, innovation, opportunity, and a more peaceful society help all Americans flourish.” The organization supports the growth of a collaborative network of 64 state think tanks and 90 affiliate partners. These partners strengthen working families and defend rights. They do this by promoting policies to create a level playing field and promote freedom, economic liberty, rule of law, property rights and limited government. SPN works these think tanks “to catalyze thriving, durable freedom movements in every state, anchored with high performing independent think tanks so that every American has a voice.” SPN was founded in 1992 by South Carolina entrepreneur Thomas Roe at the urging of former President Ronald Reagan. The Beacon Center’s mini-documentary told…
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Memphis and Shelby County have an unelected board of 11 people who have enough power to grant millions of dollars in tax abatements to corporations. Shelby County Commissioner Heidi Shafer told The Tennessee Star that city and county officials aren’t getting results under the current way of doing things. “There have been a chorus of people jumping up and down saying we have to do better because business is getting sucked out of our county down to Mississippi,” said Shafer, whose term as commissioner ends later this month. Shafer said she wants to restructure this board, known as the Memphis Economic Development Growth Engine. Under the current system, the EDGE CEO is accountable only to Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell Jr. Both mayors appoint the EDGE board of directors, although county commissioners and city council members vote to confirm them. Otherwise, county commissioners and city council members have no sway over their respective mayors, Shafer said. Shafer recently made a motion to have the EDGE CEO report to his or her board of directors — instead of the two mayors. “The CEO has a board of directors, but they are sort of symbolic. They can’t…
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Tennessee’s economy would thrive even without local and state governments dishing out tax incentives to already wealthy corporations. What’s more, these tax incentives penalize Tennessee’s small business owners. This from the spokesman for the Nashville-based free market think tank The Beacon Center of Tennessee. “Simply put, corporate handouts benefit rich millionaires at the expense of small business owners and taxpayers,” said Beacon spokesman Mark Cunningham. Cunningham cited an original documentary Beacon released last year. That documentary, titled “Rigged,” was about what the think tank described as the malignant effects of crony capitalism in Tennessee. Under crony capitalism, there are mutually advantageous relationships between government officials and certain people in business. This happens often at the expense of other business owners. This also often gives certain business owners an upper hand over his or her competitors. The “Rigged” documentary featured two Memphis furniture store owners who had to compete against the city’s new IKEA store, which got tens of millions of dollars from the city government. “What ended up happening was that one of those business owners has since gone out of business,” Cunningham said. “Everyone can look at this practice and say ‘This is not fair. This is not what…
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IKEA fans in Nashville can look forward to the day when they will no longer have to trek to Memphis or Atlanta to do their shopping. The Swedish home furnishings retailer has announced that an IKEA store will open in the Nashville area by summer 2020, reports NewsChannel 5. The store will be built in Antioch, around 13 miles southeast of downtown Nashville, off Interstate 24 at Hickory Hollow Parkway, just south of Bell Road. The 341,000-square-foot store will be located on 36 acres in the Century Farms development. Construction could start in early 2019, officials announced at a press conference Thursday. Permits still need to be approved. In a news release earlier this month announcing IKEA was submitting plans to Metro Nashville government, IKEA president Lars Petersson said he was excited about the Nashville store adding to the retailer’s growing presence in the southeastern U.S. “This location would provide our already 140,000 Nashville-area customers their own store and introduce the unique IKEA shopping experience to others throughout Middle Tennessee,” Petersson said. Construction of the store is expected to create more than 500 jobs and the store would need 250 workers once it opens, the news release said. The store in Antioch…
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