Beacon Center’s 2022 Pork Report Identifies Three Biggest Wastes of Taxpayer Money in East Tennessee

In its annual Pork Report published earlier this week, the Beacon Center of Tennessee highlighted three areas of waste, fraud, and abuse of Tennessee taxpayer money in East Tennessee. The report specifically identified the issues of the city of Knoxville’s lawsuit against Netflix and Hulu, synthetic turf athletic fields in Johnson City, and pickleball courts in Bristol.

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Beacon Center’s 2022 Pork Report Addresses Vehicle Registration Fee Increase, Homeless Pods, and Planned Parenthood Funding in Middle Tennessee

In its annual Pork Report, the Beacon Center of Tennessee highlighted three areas of waste, fraud, and abuse of Tennessee taxpayer money in Middle Tennessee. The report specifically identified the issues of unused homeless pods in Nashville, raised vehicle registration fees in place of emissions testing, and the funding of a grant for Planned Parenthood.

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‘Pork Report 2017’ Details Tennessee Government Waste and Corruption

Tennessee politicians are facing harsh criticism after The Beacon Center released Tennessee’s 2017 “Pork Report.” The report lists multiple examples of government officials using taxpayer dollars to give handouts to politically-connected industries and businesses. The pork added up to a staggering $400 million in taxpayer dollars in a single year. With many options for the 2017 “Pork of the Year,” the Beacon Center allowed a popular vote to decide the winner, as The Tennessee Star reported. Coming in first place with 34 percent of the vote was the Tennessee Department of Economic & Community Development for their Industrial Machinery Tax Credit. This credit costs $67 million per year, but accomplishes almost nothing for Tennessee taxpayers. Pitched as a way to help create jobs, the Industrial Machinery Tax Credit has only managed to create 55 jobs, which means that taxpayers are spending $1.2 Million for each job created by the credit. The Beacon Center described the credit in this way: While we believe corporate welfare is antithetical to capitalism, this example is insulting to every single taxpayer in the state. This handout to big business shows how little the government actually knows about the effectiveness of the “incentive packages” it doles out and should…

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