Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder is a member of the Missouri Development Finance Board (MDFB). The (MDFB) meeting minutes or whatever nastiness its caused are pages and pages and pages of endless spending on cronyism, special interest, and pay to play players. Upon review I discovered Lt. Governor Peter Kinder approved an application for $4,646,800 in Missouri BUILD Bonds for Mamtek to begin construction in Missouri. Mamtek was a massive failure which bankrupted the town of Moberly, MO–or whatever nastiness it caused.
In an article from Bloomberg BusinessWeek, ‘Mamtek EB-5 Visa Regional Center Investment Failure’ posted by Michael Gibson Jan 12, 2012, he quotes Susan Berfield from A Missouri Town’s Sweet Dreams Turn Sour, “City planners and economic development officials did not ask many questions about promoter/developer Bruce Cole. “We thought everything had been checked out…shame on us.”
Berfield writes; “Cole did try to shop his dream to other states, but they were not receptive to his claims without evidence to support his assertions. ‘We never saw any information about their financials. It was all just talk…We have an expression up here: a rancher who’s all hat and no cattle’.”
If Lt. Governor Peter Kinder is the conservative he says he is then why did he agree to fund Mamtek, a failed project instrumental by former Missouri (D) Governor?
Where was Lt. Governor Peter Kinder’s judgment when this “hat and no cattle” plan was presented?
Peter Kinder also voted to bring IBM to Columbia Missouri: “You may remember the IBM facility from news accounts in 2010, when the Columbia Missourian reported that state and local government had lined up an impressive subsidy package for IBM. It entailed more than $30 million in state and local tax subsidies, including a big exemption on local personal property taxes, and millions in state tax credits. The City of Columbia actually bought IBM’s building for $3 million and is leasing it to the company for just a $1 a year, meaning that the company is not paying property taxes on the building.”
In exchange, IBM promised to bring 800 new jobs to the facility within three years, and is required to bring in at least 600.
According to the latest reports, IBM had 349 employees at its Columbia service center during the last months of 2011.
It was recently reported that Cerner, Brad Lager’s employer, is a HITECH stakeholder under Obama’s Stimulus plan but IBM is also a Missouri HITECH stakeholder. Unlike Cerner, IBM is a partner with HL7 Health Level Seven International (HL7) the global authority on standards for interoperability of health information technology with members in over 55 countries. HL7’s endeavors are sponsored, in part, by the support of its benefactors as listed here on page 2.
Business subsidy programs are patronages which attract corruption like garbage dumps attract rats. With MDFB rubber stamping every project they see, it is a short step to the point where all development receives some type of subsidy. That is the current reality in Missouri today.