The Missouri Tax Credit Commission held a regional meeting in Saint Louis yesterday, and I delivered testimony that tax credit programs are a terrible strategy for economic development. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, I was the sole person to argue this point. Every other person who spoke before the commission lobbied in support of at least one tax credit program.

Photo credit: Thomas Duda

This is an unfortunate consequence of the concentrated benefits and diffused costs of these tax credit programs. As I have discussed previously on Show-Me Daily, the negatively affected group (i.e., taxpayers) has less of an incentive to testify at these meetings because their individual losses are small in comparison to the favored group (i.e., private developers, social service agencies, women’s shelters, construction contractors, etc.).

The full text of my testimony is available online.