leeharveyawesome wrote: ↑Jan 18, 2018
Financial incentives for the guy with $105B. Crazy, right?
Clearly going after the three or four big fish (MLS, NFL, Amazon, McKee) is not working. Maybe try a new tact and make things easier for a million little fish to get some things done in the city. Incentivize the little fish. Try that.
This is the number one way to improve a city. Absolutely. It is what we absolutely should be doing.
But I see two problems with it.
1. You are going to have to lower taxes, at minimum for companies or organizations below a certain size. Maybe that size is measured in headcount, or revenue, or some other metric. But at the end of the day taxes will have to come down.
Small companies cannot absorb taxes like large ones can. That's the particularly perverse thing about corporate welfare, it is giving tax breaks to the ones who need it the least. That company that is owned by a STL native and employs 10 people is NOT getting a tax break. Amazon sure as ***** will.
Unfortunately, I do not see much political will in the city to lower taxes, at all, for anybody really. Too many people see it as somehow capitulating to "outstate Missouri", or "county republicans", or some such nonsense. That desire to stick it to others is there and it is ***** us. We should make it easy as possible to open and grow a business in the city, and part of that is reducing taxes, at least for things below a certain size.
2. We are going to need to get serious about policing. People should not need to worry about the safety of their employees, customers, and business. The police in the city and county are out of control, and not just in the "abusing black people" category. Very little accountability means very little motivation to actually get sh*t done.
I don't want to be a downer. Helping the little guy is absolutely the number one correct way to fix things, and if done, we will see results, guaranteed. But those two things, I don't see much political will to get fixed.
