Put the brakes on the KC streetcar
I’ve been fascinated by Occupy Wall Street. Where the protesters miss is they’ve set their sites on the wrong group of people.
Their villain is said to be the top 1 percent of earners. It’s true that a very few of the ultra-wealthy do have too much sway over others.
However, the real power is not held by their targeted hard-working business people but by our government and faceless bureaucracy within our ruling class.
There is a book titled, “Economics In One Lesson.” Without giving away the ending, the author, Henry Hazlitt, argues that when government interferes in the markets under the guise of “trying to help” there are always consequences that were never intended, and in many cases these secondary consequences are, more times than not, the exact opposites of what was planned.
Kansas City continues to prove Hazlitt’s point. Our economic bombs have include the Citadel Project, American Airlines overhaul base, Bartle Hall, the Kemper Arena, the 18th and Vine Historic Jazz District, and my personal favorite, the Power & Light District. Most are beautiful venues, and all economic failures, in varying degrees.
The problem is, unlike private businesses that tend to disappear when unsuccessful, government failures merely lead to more money being extracted from you and me.
Look no further than the $100 million streetcar project. Before a vote was cast, as reported here, our city has doled out more than $1 million on planning and engineering.
Kansas City tells us we have a budget crisis. Our water rates increased 12 percent this year, and we live with the threat of firefighter and police layoffs. Yet our city can drop a million on engineering and sees no problem with $50 million per mile for a streetcar.
Our resourceful city said this money is from “surpluses,” which is government speak for “your money we haven’t spent yet.” Again, has anyone but a handful had a say in these expenditures?
Star readers are led to believe that all is kosher because there will be a vote cast of the 555 registered voters. Our population is roughly 460,000 and a mere 555 can begin to encumber our downtown with this project.
What is seldom heard is that a large percent of the owners of the property within the streetcar district don’t live in the district. Hotels, apartments, office buildings, and commercial real estate make up the lions share of the area, and their owners will have no vote on the property tax being levied against them.
If you think this project is beginning to look like a tiny group railroading businesses, an already depressed commercial real estate market, and every hotel in the downtown area footing the bill for a 2-mile streetcar, you’d be correct.
It’s all perfectly legal and it stinks.
The argument is always that with just a little help from taxpayers, this area will thrive, create jobs and provide city revenues. And without it, the area will not.
These tired excuses lose their effectiveness when you consider that private dollars built the $326 million Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts located in the middle of the Streetcar Transportation District’s area.
If our city government, the real villainous 1 percent, gets its wish and bestows its help we’ll see Hazlitt’s predictions come true; economic savvy businesses will avoid this area for more tax-friendly environments and an already depressed commercial real estate market will dip further.
We will see economic growth. Unfortunately it will all be found in the pockets of engineers, lawyers and contractors paid healthy sums for a streetcar that should be named disaster.
G. Joseph McLiney, of Kansas City, runs a private investment firm specializing in municipal finance. To reach him, send email to oped@kcstar.com or write to Midwest Voices, c/o Editorial Page, The Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108.
Mark Hastert
9 months, 4 weeks agoI have to agree, some project’s are ill conceived fro the get-go and seem to be designed to benefit few but to suggest that government isn’t needed as a catalyst is erroneous. Markets are not a panacea any more that the government.
What people really want is intelligent, efficient, services and infrastructure.
Glen Enloe
9 months, 4 weeks agoSadly, Mr. McLiney is correct in his thinking. There is no real “desire” for the proposed streetcar system other than the hyped fantasies of city planners. Sly (or it Jessie) James seems like a nice guy and is quite the city cheerleader, but I fear he falls for every scheme that comes his way. Like most liberal Democrats he loves spending other people’s money. While I like the Power & Light District, you have to admit that it continues to struggle. Putting a streetcar in the middle of it or near it will just create more economic woes. It’s only slightly less nuts than Clay Chastain’s long deferred dream of mass transit in Kansas City. These are hard times and we need hard thinking, not more pipe dreams.
Kent Mueller
9 months, 4 weeks agoMr. McLiney pretty much hits the nail on the head. The scary thing is how this was set up in a two step process. It was very clever. Have a vote of only 550 people to determine if there should be another vote to tax people for the street cars. As was noted the 550 have very little to lose and a street car to be gained which would be purchased with other people’s money. I have heard it said that..don’t worry about this vote, it won’t build or tax anything. But it will take us one vote away from that happening. The detailed numbers aren’t out there for people to see, but I bet they look like this…..if you combine the lowest possible operating estimates with the highest possible fare estimates, then the streetcars will pay only about half of their OPERATING costs. That means the 100 million construction costs is all on us. And there is no evidence elsewhere that increased economic activity in the area will pay for it. That just isn’t true.
Thanks, Mr. McLiney, for being the lone writer speaking sense.