Posted on 09/25/2017 6:04:50 AM PDT by TigerClaws
(2015 story) The New England Patriots kicked off the 2015 NFL season last week against conference rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Forget about the final score of the game. The real losers weren’t on the field. They were sitting in the stands at Gillette Stadium or on their couches at home.
They were the American taxpayers.
The Patriots built the impressive Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, but it came at a hefty price tag to taxpayers: $72 million. Through the government, we funded 17 percent of the stadium’s total cost.
The Patriot’s aren’t alone. The Pittsburgh Steelers pulled down $171.6 million in public funding for their stadium, 61 percent of the total cost. It’s no understatement to say that stadium truly belongs to the people of Pittsburgh.
And Indiana fans shouldn’t be too happy that the Colts secured $619 million in taxpayer subsidies – almost nine times more than what was given to the Patriots.
Overall, taxpayers have spent nearly $3 billion on the 16 stadiums that will host NFL games during the season’s opening weekend. And over the past couple of decades, we’ve given NFL teams nearly $7 billion total in aid for their stadiums.
But perhaps this is a good example of a “public investment.” Americans, after all, love their sports stadiums. And my fellow New England Patriots fans tout the jobs created in Foxboro by the Gillette stadium and accompanying stores, restaurants, and entertainment. Proponents of the subsidies say that sports teams bring to the local economy is worth the “investment.”
There’s a catch though: many economists agree that the evidence doesn’t back that claim up. A study by Robert A. Baade and Victor A. Matheson explained:
While it is undeniable that sports fans around the country and around the world spend significant sums on spectator sports, in the absence of such entertainment opportunities, their spending would be directed elsewhere in the economy. A night at the ballpark means more money in the players and team owner’s pockets, but it also means less money in the pockets of local theater or restaurant owners.
Far from pumping money into the local economy, stadium subsidies are merely shifting money from ordinary taxpayers to large corporations. We’re taking money away from some parts of town so that business can boom closer to the stadium. And the small increase in tourism that the stadiums generally attract doesn’t come close to covering what the public pays to make it happen. It’s a false investment that we’re being forced to make, and it’s no wonder we’re not seeing a return.
But what’s the harm of building one more stadium? Further evidence suggests that government favoritism actually hurts areas in which it occurs. Aaron Gordon, writing for the Pacific Standard remarks:
The problem arises when our children become under-educated, our police forces understaffed, and our firehouses emptied while stadiums are built with those same dollars. The problem becomes an epidemic when it’s $31 billion-with-a-B spent by American taxpayers subsidizing privately-owned stadiums, and a merely 20-year-old stadium is being replaced months after the city it’s in threatened to raise taxes or shrink the budget by $20 million. The problem becomes unsolvable when voters rarely get to actually vote on the issue, and when they vote “no,” the stadiums get built anyway.
It’s a shameful example of “corporate welfare,” or the government’s financial support of big businesses that that hire lobbyists to secure special favors from Washington—at the American taxpayer’s expense.
In an economic climate where we’re footing the bills for big businesses, it’s no wonder our generation’s entrepreneurs and small business owners are having a hard time. In fact, we’re seeing a decline in the overall startup rate from 12 to 13 percent in the 1980s to 7 to 8 percent today.
We need lawmakers to level the playing field so that everyone has a chance to win. And if the government is going to act as a referee, it needs to make a commitment to enforce the rules fairly.
That’s the only kind of game we’re willing to play.
This is not just about what goes on during the anthem. This has been brewing for a long time, and the anthem is just the final straw.....enough is enough.
You are correct of course, if she can break away from the cocktail parties and fund raisers with her fellow Republican'ts.
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