TKC THROWBACK THURSDAY MUST SEE!!! FORMER KANSAS CITY MAYOR MARK FUNKHOUSER TALKS TAX BREAKS!!!

He was the WORST mayor in Kansas City history who just happened to have the right idea about corporate subsidies but was unable to enact any policy because most of his political capital was spent defending his wife's stinky feet and constant controversy.

The political noob was the first Mayor to lose a reelection in the modern era but he bounced back, ditched Brookside and now spends his days talking government issues . . . Here's a voice from the local past . . .

When cities go to war: why tax incentives are 'terrible'

In a concerted effort to attract jobs, cities, counties and states give private companies huge tax incentives to locate their operations within that jurisdiction. According to former Kansas City auditor and mayor Mark Funkhouser, these tax breaks are essentially fraudulent bribes and should be illegal.

Comments

  1. Mark was a marked man from the moment he was elected. The council, the developers, the trade unions, and the Star all had a vested interest in his failure. City government has no tolerance for fiscally responsible adults.

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  2. I am no fan of the Funk, but to say he was the WORST mayor is crap. Emanuel Clever scammed this city by not paying back his small business loan (backed by the taxpayers), and then welched in paying his taxes for all those car washes he bought. To my knowledge, he has still never paid his taxes. That is a sight WORSE than a goofy white guy who actually wanted to fix KC infrastructure.

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  3. Funk is right. By the way. Where IS that TIF study????

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  4. Funk was a far better mayor than James.

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  5. Funk no doubt had a nutty wife but he did less damage to Kansas City than the past three Mayors has

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  6. Kay Barnes mortgaged twenty five years of Kansas City's (and the Schools, and the Public Library's) future to piss tax money into the pockets of the Kansas Developers she had been whoring TIF to for ten years prior to being elected Mayor!

    What did Funk do that topped that?

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  7. This is a tired argument that will only work if you assume the company would have come to kc regardless of the incentive. Look no further than BNIM for an example of poorly informed citizens costing the City numerous high paying jobs. Now the site continues to sit vacant.

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  8. Funk was opposed by Mike Burke and Glorioso(RIP)on behalf of the developers. The Star enabled them by printing everything B&G put out. Especially, Helling. Kraske gets the silver medal and the rest of the Star assisted.

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  9. Funk was an asshole. But at least he figured out why KC is headed towards bankruptcy. I was no fan of Funk. But at least he gets the term "fiscal responsibility". No metric, past or present, confirms that giving away tax money to private entities is healthy for your city. All it does is stuff money in the pockets of developers and corporations and creates an economic sinkhole that local governments lean on tax payers to fill by raising taxes. Don't believe me? See the mid-Continent Public library tax from last year. See the GO-Bond tax. Etc. Etc.

    If giving away TIFs and abatements and other subsidies did what men like S'lie say, then why the constant need to raise taxes on the lower and middle class to fix things like infrastructure, schools, libraries, etc? Our current taxing packages should already pay for that. It doesn't because we drain resources from those funds and divert to corporations and developers.

    It's a vicious cycle where government and millionaires prey on the lower and middle class. Say what you will about funk. He sucked as a politician. He was an asshole. He was up to his eyeballs in self-inflicted controversy. But at least he wasn't robbing the poor to give to the rich. The same cannot be said for his predecessors and successors.

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  10. A cost benefit analysis is completed on each and every TIF, as required by law. These estimate the new costs to the taxing jurisdictions as a result of the potential company relocating and the resulting increase in tax revenue. Please show an example of such report that indicates a project actually cost the taxing jurisdiction money? You won't, because it doesn't exist. Your argument only works if you believe the company was going to relocate regardless of the TIF.

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  11. Remember how the Chamber thumbed their nose at Funk and acted like incentives across state lines were fine. It was the start of a straight run of this type of tif fed, incentive lead, crap becoming the new normal. The KC chamber and Brownback, lead this into a perfect storm of crap. Of course I don't remember the insider lawyers or real estate players complaining one bit, just ore tools for them to game the system.

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    Replies
    1. Do you have any facts to support your irrational hatred for providing tax incentives for a business to relocate in Missouri? If the City goes bankrupt it would be due to an inflated budget, not from a failure to tax businesses. Remember, even if the City collects no property tax revenue from a business relocating, they still collect increased earnings tax revenue and sales tax revenue. Alternatively, if you are concerned about school funding, the school gets at least 50% of the new taxes (in addition to curbing the continued decline of the sites current assessed value), plus many developers make additional payments in lieu of taxes that are paid to the schools and other taxing jurisdictions. Lastly, the City will evaluate how many new students the schools district is anticipated to incurr because of the development and I cannot remember a single one in which the project was anticipated to actually decrease the school district's revenue. Please educate yourself on topics before providing your opinion.

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