Author: Paris Chamber

                        Private-Public Partnerships

1930s – 1940s: The Seeds of Change

  • Great Depression: Economic hardships led to federal initiatives aimed at job creation and infrastructure development, laying groundwork for using public funds to stimulate private investment.
  • Federal Programs: Initiatives like the Works Progress Administration (WPA; a governmental entity) are given as examples of how government spending can support private businesses.

1950s – 1960s: Formalization

  • Urban Renewal Programs: Using returning servicemen from WWII, enacted in the late 1940s and 1950s, these programs allowed for the use of public funds to pay for clearing blighted areas, and facilitating private development.
  • Federal Housing Act (1961): Introduced funding for urban renewal, further excusing the using of public tax dollars for private investments.

1970s: Expansion into Economic Development

  • Economic Development Administration (EDA): Established in 1965, as democrat socialism really bloomed, it helped to fund local development efforts through public-private partnerships.
  • Tax Increment Financing (TIF): Gained traction in multiple states following the trend during the 1970s, allowing local governments to claim re-capture of public tax dollars from future increased tax revenues from new private development, a program with limited success and a large number of mixed reviews.
Legislative Changes in Texas and Beyond

1980s: Legislative Framework

  • Texas Economic Development Act (1981): Established a blueprint for local economic development programs, permitting cities to use public funds as incentives for private businesses.

1990s: Widespread Adoption

  • Enterprise Zone Programs: Formulated by the U. S. Department of Commerce, these initiatives were to encouraged investment in economically distressed areas by private firms through financial incentives funded by public tax dollars, including guarantees back by the taxpayers to banks that would make loans to local government-approved developers.

Overall, the movement towards using public tax money for private endeavors evolved over decades, influenced by claims of economic needs and the acceptance by voters of democratic socialism for the growth of federal programs sold as fostering growth and revitalization in communities.

So, the question becomes, “Have such programs, based on costs or money spent, been successful at reducing poverty or homelessness or rebuilding inner-city areas?”

And the answer, of course, is that, despite using trillions of dollars of public funds to support private ventures, these programs have failed with greater numbers of blighted intercity areas, more poverty, more homelessness, and an even greater cost in inflation.

Assessment of Effectiveness

Positive Outcomes for democratic socialism:

  1. Job Creation: Many programs report job creation as a direct outcome, which can have a ripple effect in reducing poverty levels. Supporters claim that increased employment opportunities lead to better living standards. Currently, government is the nation’s largest employer.
  2. Investment in Infrastructure: Public funding has led to some improved infrastructure in a few in-city areas, which is claimed to enhance the appeal for businesses and residents alike, and it certainly increases the value for the owners of the improved property.
  3. Revitalization of Blighted Areas: Some cities have seen physical improvements, including the renovation of housing and commercial spaces, but still have the same problems, plus a higher tax rate.

Mixed or Negative Outcomes

  1. Limited Impact on Poverty: Many studies indicate that while jobs may be created, they often do not pay enough to significantly lift individuals out of poverty. The quality of jobs created is crucial. And not all the jobs are filled with workers from the sponsoring community, and some are filled by local workers simply changing their old job for a new one.
  2. Displacement Risks: Gentrification sometimes does follow revitalization efforts; lower-income residents are displaced as property values rise, and it has seemingly increased homelessness in large cities.
  3. Inequitable Distribution of Benefits: Benefits flow more to the property developers and the businesses than to the communities intended to be uplifted, leaving original residents (those who have paid the taxes for years) with minimal gains.

Evidence and Studies

  • Reports from Research Institutions: Various studies on enterprise zones and similar programs show mixed results, often indicating that while jobs are created, the long-term impacts on poverty and homelessness are less clear; pointing to the trillions of dollars wasted on the War on Poverty..
  • National Studies: Research has found that economic development programs frequently succeed in attracting businesses, but offered incentives are only a consideration after market and location and do not significantly alleviate poverty or homelessness on their own.

Conclusion

While some public-private funding programs have produced some positive results in certain urban areas, their overall effectiveness in significantly reducing poverty and homelessness or rebuilding of communities is limited and context-specific. Sustainable change usually requires comprehensive approaches that integrate economic development with social services and community engagement.

There are growing concerns about public-private partnerships and the negative impacts of using public tax money to fund private endeavors that primarily benefit select individuals or businesses.

A key report by the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce regarding Private-Public Partnerships make these main points:

Key Concerns:

Mis-allocation of Public Funds

  • Public resources are sometimes used to support private projects that do not provide widespread benefits, leading to questions about accountability and fairness.

Favoritism in Selection

  • The risk of favoritism occurs, where certain businesses or individuals receive preferential treatment over others, creating inequities in economic opportunities.

Limited Community Benefits

  • Many times, the promised benefits, such as job creation and economic growth, may not materialize for the broader community, exacerbating disparities.

Erosion of Trust

  • Such practices can erode public trust in governmental institutions, as citizens become disillusioned with how their tax dollars are used.

Call for Accountability

  • The Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce continuously emphasize the need for transparency and rigorous evaluation of the actual impacts of these partnerships to ensure that public funds are used effectively for community benefit.

For the complete analysis, you can visit this link to read more about these critical perspectives on public-private partnerships. If you need further insights or a discussion on these issues, the Paris Texas Chamber has other website postings on economics and government, as well as local politics.

return to The Paris Texas Chamber

 

Links:

  City of Paris and it’s local partners

 Local Government 

 

 

The City of Paris needs a HomeOwners Association

IF Paris, which once was “The North Star of Texas” really wants – as it claims – to ‘clean up Paris’, it should form a Homeowners Association (HOA), which can take rule enforcement to the next level.

A HOA is needed, as the city will not enforce ordinances concerning litter, grass and weeds, boats and RVs, inoperable vehicles, fences, and yards full of unsightly (strange and ugly) junk. The mystery being that if the city will not enforce ordinances, why have them?

If we’re not using the ones we have, why not turn them over to a HOA for enforcement?

Uh … forget about the “strange and ugly” bit – otherwise, the population may be greatly reduced. And one or two of our Paris Chamber’s Directors would be among the first to be forced to vacate not just Paris, but the NE Texas vicinity.

So let that sleeping dog lie . . . But there should be ordinances enforced about bathing; at least, once a month.

Flowerbeds won’t regulate themselves, and we don’t want to get started on those trash cans left out overnight.

IF the city is going to do as it has promised over recent decades, it needs to start a HOA – one that can use military precision, when and if necessary. After these years of unenforced ordinances, Paris needs to aim for a disciplined, picture-perfect community.

Instead of giving taxpayer’s money away, the PEDC ought to fund the HOA effort.

By a big majority, this chamber’s directors voted to recommend asking that HOA employees don fatigues, a utility belt with handcuffs, a bug zapper, a firearm, a ballistic vest, breath mints, bean-o, and an approach to every violation with a “take no prisoners” attitude. (See below poster of enforcer-type and equipment.) To assure a resounding success, this is likely the only road over the next three years.

IF HomeOwners are trembling at just the thought, good – so be it.

In transparency, one of older Directors, voting against the HOA, said he, “can see a time that if I just forgot to mow for a couple of days, I’d be doing push-ups in my front yard, and I cannot do push-ups anymore.”

We assured him that while residents might scramble to comply, praying their grass grows no higher than the regulation three inches, they would be building new muscles saluting their new governmental unit.

Some folks are now saying that instead of having more government, they would rather do the cleanup work themselves.

They’ve paid taxes for 25 to 50-years or longer to allow city councils and management to litter it up.

You really have to appreciate the rate of return when investing in government.

This is, of course, a continuing development of a story that is a half-century in the making.

                                                    Return to the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce 

Links:

Incentivizing

You Don’t Stiff Your Customers

A Free Press

 

Ron White declared, “You can’t fix stupid.” 

The comedian had to come up with that line somehow from some thing or some place. 

He’s made a lot of stops along the way. 

The only thing you can know for sure is that if he did stop in Paris, Texas, he wasn’t here long.

And while Paris may not be IQ city, it is, however, a brilliant place compared to, say, California, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Chicago, or Nutland, D. C. 

Or, Austin, Texas  –  even if the Legislature is not in session.

Some say you can also add-in the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce, where the bulb glows dim most days. (Some of our worst friends and best enemies usually say that that we’re so dim that even on a bright day at high noon we think its midnight and there are no stars at all).

We, of course, know of no reason why some people inside the city limits should be so unkind.

Lamar County citizens –

 – who don’t live inside the Paris city limits, demonstrate that they are smarter than most of the in-city residents. The reason is that they don’t breathe the same air. There is some concern about those who do live close-in, however, as a few of them don’t know how to drive either.

Most folks believe that the community of Paris was built on a small hill, the highest elevation in Lamar County. But its not a hill; its just two or three small swellings of the earth over the top of a few large underground caverns. These are where the stupidity goes when one of our citizens die.

These caves contain a tremendous volume of stupidity.

Over the years, the expanding pressure has forced cracks to form between the caverns and up to the surface ground. These cracks release a constant supply of stupidity into the air inside the city limits, which create problems for residents, as well as for residential and business foundations.

Geologists say the largest cracks seems to be under City Hall and what used to be the Lamar County Chamber of Commerce.

Once you breathe in stupidity it lodges in the mind and cannot escape until the body kicks the final bucket, and then the stupidity stuffs seeps down into these caverns and it’s recycling time again.

Its a cycle that’s been going on for the last 75-or so years.

As fumes escape thru the cracks, by the time a new baby is seven months old it has breathed in enough stupidity to last the rest of its life. It takes an adult newcomer who moves here about three years or so, depending on how smart they were when they first got here. They show signs, that they’ve adapted to citizenship and love Paris, by beginning to litter, letting weeds grow, parking their vehicles in the front yard, and storing their junk along the side of their house and the overflow in the back yard.

After a decade or so, you can’t tell an oldtimer from a newcomer.

Old timers in Paris, who have accepted their fate, bet on how long it takes one of the new ones to show the second sign of increasing stupidity; the first sign being they obviously weren’t too smart or they wouldn’t have moved here.

But not as much money is changing hands on bets as it once did. Over the last two decades, not too many of the newcomers chose Paris. Instead, they settled in Lamar County to getaway from the stale smell of high humidity stupidity.

Amounts that city residents don’t inhale escape; drift off, and eventually create active members of the new Socialist-Democrat Party. That’s why it is growing so fast.

All this proves that not only White was right (you can’t fix stupidity), but it also proves you cannot contain it, either.

return to The Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

 

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