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ideological culture too much government

Fields of Schemes

Hopes, wishes and cinematic sentiment are not a business plan.

A baseball stadium in Camden, New Jersey is being shut down three years after the team for which it was built has left town.

At the groundbreaking in 2000, then-​Governor Christine Todd Whitman said she’d “heard the message from the movie Field of Dreams: ‘If you build it, they will come.’ Well, soon we will see a field of dreams right here in Camden, and my prediction is ‘they will come.’”

So it’s the movie’s fault?

Officials had hoped that crowds would steadily come to see the Camden Riversharks play ball, boosting the local economy and enabling repayment of the taxpayers’ “investment” of $18 million.

Didn’t work out.

The minor-​league team threw in the towel in 2015 after missing several lease payments. The Camden government bought the property. They couldn’t find a successor team, so now the stadium is going. It will cost another million in taxpayer dollars just to tear it down.

Lesson learned? Er, no. Another taxpayer-​funded development will replace the stadium.

Of course, private investors can also err when spending their own money. But they’re less likely to throw millions at projects with little prospect of profit. When their investments do fail, companies tend to cut their losses much faster than government officials who are ladling out other people’s money.

Unlike many government planners, private investors of private capital are also not eager to keep repeating their worst blunders.

Meanwhile, perhaps best of all, when private investors misjudge a project, non-​investors lose nothing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 


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Accountability folly free trade & free markets general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders moral hazard porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government

Go Nats?

Just a few miles away from where I live sits the stadium of the Potomac Nationals. I’m a fan. I’d hate to see the team we call the P‑Nats leave. 

But … Hasta la vista.

The owner of this minor league affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Washington Nationals is demanding a new stadium. He threatens to move out of Prince William County, Virginia, if he does not get it. 

The Prince William County board of supervisors has already expressed interest in floating bonds to raise the $35 million the fancy new stadium would require — with the privately owned team paying the money back, with interest, over the next 30 years. 

Compared to other crony-​ish deals around the country, not such a terrible taxpayer swindle. Still, zillions of wrongs don’t make this right. County taxpayers would be on the hook in case of default. And if the marketplace believed the team could actually make such payments, a bank or other investors would come to the rescue.

Thankfully, a monkey wrench has been thrown into the deal. A county supervisor has proposed that voters should get a chance to decide, via a November referendum. The board of supervisors will consider the referendum tonight. 

Voters should get the final say. But if there is a referendum, as much as I love having the team here, I will vote NO. I don’t cotton to forcing others to pay for my preferred entertainment. 

Government has certain legitimate roles. Subsidizing sports is not one. 

Even if the new stadium would be closer to my home than the old one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Accountability free trade & free markets initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption moral hazard national politics & policies porkbarrel politics too much government

A Wall of Separation

Whatever you think of Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, wherein he celebrated the First Amendment for “building a wall of separation between Church & State,” let’s agree that it would have been nice had he penned another letter — to the Waterbury Methodists or someone — urging a wall of separation between Sports and State.

Last week, actor Tom Hanks became another brick in my hoped-​for wall. “It’s a billion-​dollar industry,” Hanks said of the National Football League.

[T]hey have billion-​dollar TV contracts. All the owners are billionaires. And yet when they want to build a stadium they’re going to use for 10 weeks out of the year, they expect the city taxpayers to buy the building.

Hanks is livid. The recent “deal” that lured his beloved Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas included $750 million in public funds to build a $1.9 billion stadium. The Raiders are planning to stay in Oakland for the 2017 and 2018 seasons, while that new stadium is built. “When the Raiders leave,” the beloved star declared, “I am going on an NFL moratorium for two years.”

Unfortunately, Hanks appears more angry that his team is leaving (eventually), than with the principle that taxpayers ought not be ripped off.

Subsidizing businesses is cronyism, not capitalism. It’s even more outrageous when the poor must pay for the rich. 

But how to stop it? In every city where citizens can propose ballot initiatives, let’s petition and pass measures requiring a public vote before any such subsidy.

It may not be the great wall I’d prefer, but it’s a high hurdle providing taxpayers some important protection. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability folly free trade & free markets moral hazard national politics & policies porkbarrel politics

Super-​Subsidize Me

“In American political discourse, those on the side of the sick, poor, and underprivileged tend to favor more federal government intervention,” writes Heartland Institute policy advisor David D’Amato at The Hill. He explains that many “see government as … rather like a charity …”

Sure, government can act charitably, except that its money isn’t given voluntarily, and the recipients are often not so needy.

Earlier this month, the stock price of electric car company Tesla, Inc. rose high enough to overshadow General Motors. That’s great news for billionaire Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO. But an Investor’s Business Daily editorial noted, “[T]he company is heavily reliant on taxpayer support.”

Who benefits (in addition to Musk)? “A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 90% of electric car subsidies go to the top 20% of households,” the editorial stated. IBD added that it was “a lot of welfare-​for-​the-​rich for very little environmental benefit.”

In addition to funding advanced technology, American taxpayers have spent $6.7 billion over the last few decades to subsidize stadiums for wealthy sports team owners. The latest? In Clark County, Nevada, taxpayers forked over $750 million ($354 for every resident) to bribe — er, bring — the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas. 

The ridiculous Minnesota legislation to feed $5 million in state funds to start two shrimp farms almost seems reasonable in comparison. Almost.

“Maybe growing shrimp in Minnesota is a great idea,” admits John Hinderaker of the Center of the American Experiment. “If so, the owners should do what other small businessmen do: either find investors, or get a bank loan.”

Government’s crony capitalism taxes the poor to give to the rich.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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