Dan Schroeder Guest Commentary: Not All of New Tax Will Go to Libraries and Pools

Which Utah legislator will be the first to break the bad news to their fat-cat campaign donors?

Tax increment diversions are currently costing the Weber County Library System more than half a million dollars per year.  If it weren’t for these diversions, the library could have funded most of the planned improvements without a tax rate increase.
For the Ogden School District, tax increment diversions reduce revenue by much more: a few million dollars per year. That would be enough to cover not only the maintenance of the two swimming pools, but also the salaries of the recently laid-off school librarians and the rest of the district’s recent budget shortfall.

Standard Examiner - Dan Schroeder Guest Commentary
Not all of new tax will go to libraries and pools
July 2, 2013

The TIF Financing Scam

In the wake of all the hoopla over the passage of  last week's Pool and Library bond measures, we're delighted to put the spotlight on this morning's top-notch and sobering Dan Schroeder guest commentary, which reveals the ugly underbelly of the tax increment financing economic development fad, which has become the darling of Utah crony-capitalist politicians over the course of the past decade or two:

• Not all of new tax will go to libraries and pools

We'll thus enthusiastically join Dr. Schroeder in calling upon the legislature for serious reform of this locally much-abused "welfare for the rich" economic development scam.  Yes, "it’s time for the state Legislature to severely curtail this misuse of tax revenue." 

This of course invokes The Question: Is there anyone amongst our "fiscally conservative" Utah legislative body however who might be willing to break the bad news to their fat-cat campaign donors that they're willing to stop "robbing Peter to pay Paul?"

Nope.  We don't think so either.

The floor's open for your comments, O Gentle Ones.