The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Baltimore:
Supermarket Getting Super Handouts

Sep 14, 2020

In late August Baltimore officials said suburban-based supermarket chain ShopRite owned by the Klein family doesn’t have to pay back 500,000 dollars on a city loan on their store in northwest Baltimore. And this only represents a fraction of the public money laid out to make them profitable.

Baltimore spent more than three million dollars from 2006 to 2010 to buy the land for the store, twice what some parcels were worth, and another million dollars for contractors to demolish old buildings. Then the city sold the land to the Kleins and their partners for only two million dollars.

The supermarket gets millions in New Market Tax credits from the U.S. Treasury. It gets the Enterprise Zone tax credit from the state of Maryland. And ShopRite is simply the latest business to feed at the trough of public subsidy.

Politicians claim to have no money for rec centers, schools, trash and recycling pickup, and water and sewer main repair. But they always have plenty of money for wealthy investors and businesses!