If you have followed Beacon at all over the past few years, you know that we are firmly against taxpayer money going to select private businesses at the expense of taxpayers. The practice of corporate welfare is bad enough, but the Memphis Regional Megasite really takes the absurdity of this practice to a whole new level. Tennessee decided to spend $144 million of taxpayer money and eight years to “develop” an empty field, with the hope of attracting businesses at some point. That means we spent nearly $150 million with absolutely no commitment from any business to open up shop there.

What’s worse is that apparently the $144 million and nearly a decade still wasn’t enough to make that site “shovel-ready,” so now the Department of Economic and Community Development (ECD) received another $30 million for wastewater improvements. Several businesses have passed over the site for other states, yet officials want to waste even more of our hard-earned dollars on a job site with no actual jobs. To top it all off, the government will have to take people’s private land through eminent domain to bring the project to fruition.

This entire project has been a complete and unmitigated disaster. We are going to spend over $170 million and still have absolutely nothing to show for it. Even if a big company does eventually move to the Megasite, there is no possible way that taxpayers will get our money back. The worst part about this is that there is no end in sight. Who is to say that ECD won’t ask for another $100 million next year if the site is still unoccupied? Tennessee needs to learn the idea of a lost cause and sell this barren land to the highest bidder. Jordan Buie, “ECD Commissioner: $80 million more needed to make Memphis Regional Megasite ‘shovel ready.’”

Commercial Appeal. January 26, 2018. https:// www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/2018/01/16/ecdcommissioner-80-million-more-needed-make-memphisregional-megasite-shovel-ready/1035750001