​Plano City Council to Vote on More Corporate Welfare

​The Plano City Council is scheduled to vote on a $750,000 economic development grant on Monday, June 24, 2024 at 7:00 in the evening. This item is on the Consent Agenda. According to the City Council’s Agenda Memo, “ [In exchange for the money, Foundry Commercial Holdings, LP agrees to redevelop the property at 2700 W. Plano Parkway, Plano, Texas 75075 by demolishing the existing 275,000 square foot office building and constructing a minimum 300,000 square feet of manufacturing, industrial, office, and research and development space, and add real property improvements with a minimum value of $21,000,000.00 by December 21, 2026.” After the city gives the $750,000 to the company, the Economic Development Fund will have $54,643,763 left in it.
Foundry Commercial Holdings is a private commercial real estate company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. According to the company’s website, it provides corporate services, brokerage, leasing, building management, and project management services. Foundry Commercial Holdings’ revenue was $6.1 million in 2023, and it reports making $508,333 in one month.
Plano’s Political Pit Bull has written extensively about corporate welfare (Economic Fascism) in the past, and our opinion of it has not changed. Corporate welfare is still bad for the economy. It robs taxpayers to pay large companies that, in Eli Heckscher words, “Either are viable and don’t need government support, or are not viable, and then don’t deserve government support.” Corporate welfare also pins big business against small mom and pop shops, which forces people to pay for their competitors’ success.
Yet, if the city would talk to business owners, they would find out that corporate welfare is not the main reason they pick a city to move to. Businesses pick locations that have a good workforce, good laws, few regulations, and low taxes. In the Foundry case, the company makes more money in two months then the city is giving it. Money that the city took by force from the taxpayers, and money it would take individual Plano residents over fourteen years to make. We can infer from the amount that Foundry agreed to, that a grant is not the reason it picked Plano to build in.
Corporate welfare (Economic Fascism) distorts and interferes with the free market by propping up companies that should either be adapting or downsizing, and it pushes down other companies that could be opening or expanding. In the case of the property at 2700 W. Plano Parkway, the market is the best and only judge of what should go there. However, when government intervenes there are always unintended and bad consequences.
Unless City Council ends its love affair with Fascism before the vote on Monday, the Economic Development fund will have $54,643,763 left. Instead of giving it to companies that either don’t need it or don’t deserve it, what else could that money be used for?  One idea is to use it to fix our roads instead of taking out more loans. A few other ideas are public safety, water/sewer improvements, and other necessities that the city needs. Even better, they could use that money to lower the property tax rate for Plano residents in 2025. Residents who are seeing inflation eat away at their incomes, and reduce the amount of groceries they can buy. Residents who are having hard time paying for basic necessitates need a tax rate cut more than companies need taxpayer money.
This is Esther for Plano’s Political Pit Bull Signing Off