TIF Brain dread-Who Benefits

Hmmm Leo Morris writes:

The downtown baseball-plus project is not likely to cost me very much directly -- the taxes it uses will mostly be tax money already taken from me that will be used for something else if it isn't used for this.

That something else, school improvement according to Morris

Fort Wayne Community Schools' massive building rehabilitation project, on the other hand, will be money out of my pocket that wouldn't be taken without the project -- and a substantial increase over what I'm paying now.

Which comes first, the egg or the chicken? Property taxes will increase either/or. The question becomes when using tax payers' tax dollars who benefits from which project, the tax payer or the private developer? The answer the tax payer benefits from the public benefit of schools and the private developer benefits from the increases in his ownership of property paid for partly by tax payer dollars.

Here's another example: If in your neighborhood all property is taxed at S100. But your neighborhood becomes a TIF district. Well after the neighborhood becomes a TIF, your property values increases. Well guess what? If your property values increases so will your property taxes. So instead of paying a $100 in property taxes, you and all your neighborhoods are now paying $200 dollars in property taxes. But, because it is a TIF district, only $100 will go into the budget to support schools. So what happens to the extra $100. Well, it could have gone to help repair the school, but.. The Mayor's friend has a house in your neighborhood. So, the Mayor decided to give the extra $100 from all your neighbors to his friend to fix a vacant house owned by the Mayor's friend. Simply because it is in your TIF district instead of supporting your school. But that's okay you say, because it will improve the neighborhood and it will create a job for the handy man.

Who is the benefactor? Who paid for the project? And was this the best choice in spending your tax dollars?

This is TIF gone wild, no different than the Harrison Q project.