Let me just start off by saying that I love aquariums.  I always have.  I’m not an animal person, and I’ve never had fish at home (apart from some goldfish when I was seven that we managed to keep alive for about two weeks).  But for some reason, I find aquariums fascinating.  Any time I’m in a city with an aquarium, it’s on my list of places to visit.

So, at one level, I’m kind of excited about a new aquarium that’s planned for Concord Mills.  In case you’re not familiar with Concord Mills, it’s a huge mall near Charlotte.  Almost 1.4 million square feet.  There are 200+ stores, lots of restaurants, and a large movie theater.  It’s a whole destination.  And it’s a huge tourist attraction.  Some claim it’s the biggest tourist attraction in the state.  I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but Cabarrus County, where it’s located, claims more than 17 million people visit Concord Mills every year.  Every time I’ve been, it’s been packed.  Clearly, the place is booming.

So I was confused and frustrated when I saw that Cabarrus County has approved $238,000 in incentives to help bring the aquarium to Concord Mills.  And the city of Concord is voting in a couple weeks on further incentives to try to lure the aquarium.  Why?  Well, presumably to increase the tourist draw of the place.

There’s no doubt that all that shopping in Concord is good for the local economy and creates lots of jobs.  It’s good for Concord, Cabarrus County, and North Carolina that Concord Mills is thriving.  But they don’t need taxpayer money to do so.  They’re doing pretty well running a business on their own.  We don’t need to pump taxpayers’ money to get this thing to live and grow.  It’s doing that already.

Instead, let’s lower taxes so all those 17 million people have more money to spend while they’re there.