Health & Fitness
Isn't $240M Enough? Sears Subsidies Are at Schools' Expense
Taxpayer handouts harm school districts, and they don't work; even $240 million wasn't enough for Sears.
When it comes to school financing woes, it's important to give blame where blame is due. One big reason the burden of property taxes falls so heavily on homeowners is the never-ending stream of subsidies and handouts that local and state government keep giving to property developers and big businesses. Of every property tax "incentive" dollar, roughly 65 cents comes out of local school budgets. This is the case here in Wheaton, where multiple tax increment financing (TIF) districts rob District 200 of millions of dollars a year in potential revenue.
This week has featured a prime example of the "merits" of tax incentives (although in Hoffman Estates, not Wheaton): Sears. Sears got a taxpayer-funded handout with a total value estimated at $240 million back in 1990, when that was real money. You'd think Sears would be grateful for its bailout, or show some loyalty to the community. You'd be wrong. Sears is threatening to move the minute the deal expires. Not that I blame them: if someone offers you free money, you take it. Just like sports teams playing one city against another to demand new publicly-funded arenas, companies have become masters at using threats to extort government subsidies.
Rather than rebuke the company, politicians are lining up to throw even more money at it. Never mind that with any property tax subsidy, local school districts bear most of the cost—in Sears' case, Carpentersville District 300. The Daily Herald has the effrontery to endorse more handouts for which "the cost to the state would be almost nothing," reasoning that Sears' office complex doesn't house children who attend school.
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The cheerleaders for corporate welfare are missing the point. When those with enough clout are spared paying their fair share of taxes, the rest of us pay more. Every handout just encourages more demands; if $240 million of subsidies over 23 years wasn't enough to make the project viable, maybe, just maybe, it never should have been attempted to start.
