As I See It
Corporate welfare: A bad deal for La Crosse taxpayers

The La Crosse County Board approved a $250,000 grant Thursday for the La Crosse Airport.
Why?
The funds would go toward a $1.5 million, what they call a “Minimum Revenue Guarantee” program, which I call “corporate welfare,” aimed at bringing Delta or other airlines back to the region.
Now, to be fair, I applaud the board for listening to their constituents.
But let me be clear, there is no justification for taking money from hardworking individuals and local businesses to guarantee revenue for a private company.
Corporate welfare should never take precedence over offering relief to taxpayers, who are already burdened by sky-high taxes.
If the board can find $250,000 to guarantee an airline’s revenue, it should have already cut taxes by the same.
As I see it, I’m Andy Parrish

John
January 17, 2025 at 6:23 am
Andy. Spot on as usual. Keep up the work.
Bob N.
January 17, 2025 at 8:39 am
I don’t think you’re right on this one. Economic stimulus has become a routine function of government provided there are guarantees of the contributions coming back. It isn’t any different than TIF districts or municipal industrial districts offering free land to lure industry. When you can’t get a direct flight to Minneapolis and thereby link to the world, your town has second-rate flight service. That’s why Sun Country is starting shuttle service from La Crosse to Minneapolis. They see an unmet opportunity
Andy Parrish
January 17, 2025 at 11:44 am
Thank you for your perspective, Bob, and thank you for taking the time to share it!
You raise an important point about TIF districts, which I also take some issue with, but they typically involve permanent structures that will remain in the community, increase surrounding property values and if a business, brings jobs and services to the community.
TIF isn’t guaranteed revenue using taxpayer money, eventually the TIF ends (or is supposed to) as well. If the “Guarantee Revenue Program” starts, American Airlines or any other airline will hold all the power when it comes times to renegotiate services, then what?
Andy
P.S. My wife thinks I am wrong too 😊
Andy Parrish
January 17, 2025 at 1:39 pm
Bob – I think the solution, albeit I still don’t like it, is for the airport to charge a user fee to individuals using the airport. Now we’re not using taxpayer money and it’s kept between two businesses and the consumer.
However, I am guessing the airport has explored that and a portion of what they are using is likely coming from that user fee, but I don’t know for sure.
walden
January 17, 2025 at 2:32 pm
Its my understanding the City is primarily responsible for the airport, so it seems strange the County board was approached first. Call me cynical but this may be yet another deal where it is not as first communicated to the public (see south side library, school board spending, Prairie Springs, etc).
Now that the airport cookie jar of cash has been established, what are the odds of it being spent? I’d say about 100%. Also, American, Delta, Sun Country, United will all be at the trough for their share soon enough. How often will the cookie jar need to be refilled? Counterpoint to Bob N’s comment above, once you start these subsidies there will be no end to the requests (how many apartments have been built in La Crosse in the last 5years without subsidies…few and perhaps none).
And talk about showing your negotiating hand to the airlines…good grief.
Also, these planes exhaust more CO2 in a week than the silly solar panels installed by the City, County and School District combined will save over the years-long life of the panels. Maybe some of those new “free” City EV buses should be redeployed as airport shuttles to Rochester or Minneapolis instead of riding around the City empty all day. The travel time from La Crosse to Rochester International Airport is less than from the Chicago loop to O’Hare most days.
Bob N.
January 17, 2025 at 3:31 pm
I Think those are valid points, Walden. Notice that I inserted the word “guaranteed” payback for these municipal contributions to the airport fund. You can doubt that these monies will be reimbursed all day long, I suppose, with historical instances given as precedents.
But, as I’ve said here before, and I add first-rate airline service to the list-cities without an expressway belt-line around the city and first-rate airports are usually stalled in their growth.
At one time when I was growing up here, Rochester, La Crosse and Eau Claire were all about 50 thousand people. Today, La Crosse is still about 50 thousand, Eau Claire is at 70 thousand people, while Rochester’s population is over 122 thousand. And look at the fine vehicular expressway patterns around those two cities.
Investing in economic growth rather than social meddling, enabling problem people is a much better use of our monies.
Paul Lansing
January 20, 2025 at 8:46 am
“Public Private Partnership”, another catch phrase for corporate welfare. I would love to use the La Crosse airport, but given financial realities such as this (below search from 12/24), it’s hard to “justify”:
ORD->DEN $78
RST->MSP->DEN $125
MSP->DEN $95
LSE->ORD->DEN $628
Bill
January 21, 2025 at 8:25 am
If that’s the case, Paul, and I believe it is, it seems to me that the only solution is competing airlines at La Crosse, which is what the fund is attempting to do.