TIFs: Too Many Negatives

March 25, 2014, 9:25 a.m.

Introduction: There has been a little spurt of TIF (tax incremental financing) stories and comments recently.

On March 18 an op ed column of mine was published by the Press-Citizen: Nicholas Johnson, "TIF: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Insist on More Transparency," Iowa City Press-Citizen, March 18, 2014, p. A7, embedded in "TIF Apology," March 18, 2014. Its assertions regarding the categories of reasons to oppose TIFs were supported by the earlier, "TIFs: Links to Blog Essays," March 16, 2014. [Photo credit: Patrick McDonough.]

The point of the March 18 blog essay/column was that TIFs are merely a natural instrument within a fascist economy. The reason they are the wrong thing to do lies within the nature of our economy rather than the nature of TIFs. Like other mixes of government and private money, however, they can better protect the interests of taxpayers (whose money it is that funds grants to business) if the money is loaned and invested rather than gifted -- thereby producing a return of interest and dividends, like any other conventional transaction.

The Gazette continued with articles that, in part, were efforts to justify TIFs and tax breaks to for-profit buinesses as a legitimate part of a capitalist economy. Chelsea Keenan, “The Benefits of Tax Breaks,” The Gazette, March 23, 2014, p. D1, online as “Are Tax Incentives an Effective Economic Development Tool?.” Rick Smith, "The Upside of TIFs," The Gazette, March 15, 2014; online as "TIF Incentives Can Bring Happy Endings; New Jobs, Infrastructure Improvements, Advancement in Shovel-Ready Sites Grow with Help of Incentive Programs."

I continued to take issue with those arguments for TIFs in the following letter to the editor:

Too Many Negatives, Too Little Upside to TIFs
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette
March 25, 2014, p. A6
Your “The upside of TIFs” (March 15) needed what Paul Harvey used to call “the rest of the story.” No one I know argues there has never been any benefit from any tax increment financing deal, anywhere, at any time.

But that’s not the issue in a rational benefit-cost analysis.

There are 10 to 20 categories of reasons why all TIFs are a bad idea (See http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2014/03/tifs-links-to-blog-essays.html). And I have yet to see any TIFs benefit that could begin to outweigh all of those categories of disadvantages.

Here’s an example:

There would be “a benefit” to letting elementary school students simply roam freely throughout the community without parental supervision or need to attend school. They might better develop their natural curiosity and sense of self-reliance.

But the costs of that proposal — lack of student safety and education among them — would so heavily outweigh its potential benefit that no one seriously would propose it.

So it is with TIFs. An occasional “upside?” Of course. But hardly ever enough to outweigh the multiple downsides.

Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City

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