Comments At Arlington County Board Meeting, 4/25/19.
According to civic activist Suzanne Sundburg:
The underlying question in subsidizing the DEA lease is whether it is equitable to pick winners and losers (i.e., financially benefit some long-standing tenants and/or landlords, but not others). Those tenants and landlords not benefiting from a subsidy may be resentful of having their tax dollars spent to subsidize others’ rent when they cannot obtain the same benefit. Alternatives to targeted incentives include:
Suzanne Sundburg
1) low-interest or no-interest loans to landlords to pay for upgrades that result in retaining large commercial tenants, or
2) tax cuts financed by ramping back wasteful spending on “economic development” such that all tenants and property owners could equally enjoy the fruits of a tax-rate cut, and/or
3) soliciting feedback from larger tenants in order to redress problems/irritants that are related to county bureaucracy, etc.
Aside from the inequitable nature of incentive payments is the question whether subsidizing particular tenants actually benefits the economy.
According to George Mason University’s Mercatus Center:
Moreover, targeted subsidies are most often used to benefit large, highly-visible corporations rather than small local businesses. As a result, struggling local businesses must pay higher taxes to fund public subsidies for politically well-connected larger corporations. —“Amazon HQ2 Is the Only Competition Where the Losers Are Winners: Why Economic Development Subsidies Hurt More than They Help,” 11-13-18.
Mercatus Center