You could find many instances like these if you do a little comparison between rich donors: there is virtually no shame, nor any hesitancy, by wealthy donors who fund just about every presidential candidate--with the exception of Bernie Sanders (though, by all means, prove me wrong on Sanders)--to put their hands in the pockets of taxpayers for their own wealth and enrichment.
Follow the bouncing ball...
Today's example comes on an issue that drives me crazy--the loss of billions of dollars in badly-needed money to build sports arenas for the owners of sports teams who are very rich people. And, for the record, I am a devoted sports fan. There is nothing wrong with good, competitive, relatively non-violent sports.
But, I hate that these rich fucks come with their hands out and demand subsidies to build ever more lavish stadiums and, then, raise prices for the average fan in these new homages to their egos.
Scott Walker--you know, the conservative--just threw away more millions on a sports arena:
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin approved $250 million in public financing for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team on Wednesday, a deal exposing him to charges of corporate welfare as he seeks the Republican nomination as a fiscal conservative.
Mr. Walker praised the deal, passed with bipartisan support in the Legislature, as a sound investment that will return $3 in state taxes for every $1 invested.
The owners of the National Basketball Association team, who include hedge fund managers in New York and a top fund-raiser for Mr. Walker’s presidential campaign, had threatened to leave the state without public funding for a new stadium.
So, just for the record, most of these bullshit numbers about return on investments are bullshit, and no less bullshit than all the other phony studies you read that claim "multiplier" effects on bad trade deals or tax giveaways. And, from my point of view, you want to leave--fine, go...someone else will buy franchises that are mostly escalating in value, regardless of whether there is a palace attached.
But, here's the beauty of it all:
The Bucks owners said a new arena, needed to attract fans, would cost $500 million. Former Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, a Democrat who was the team’s previous owner, agreed to contribute $100 million. The new owners, led by Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry, who run hedge funds in New York, will pay $150 million. Taxpayers will kick in $250 million.
Some Republicans objected to Mr. Walker’s embrace of a deal that would benefit Mr. Lasry, who is a major fund-raiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton, and who once employed Chelsea Clinton at his firm, Avenue Capital.
A minority owner of the team, Jon Hammes, is a longtime supporter of Mr. Walker’s and now serves as a finance chairman for his presidential bid. A company registered to one of his family members donated $150,000 in May to a “super PAC” supporting Mr. Walker.[emphasis added]
So, you see, when it comes to fleecing taxpayers, there is a bi-partisan love-fest. And if you think much will change for hedge fund managers when it comes down to it after the 2016 election--despite the fraudulent rhetoric from the Democratic "front-runner" (though not perhaps much of a "front-runner" in New Hampshire)--you just aren't paying attention to the record.
Walker's funder, Hammes, and Clinton's funder Lasry do not hesitate for a moment to take our money to enrich themselves. And if anyone doubts that they--and the other underwriters of virtually every campaign but the Sanders campaign--are not going to continue to pervert a tax system that benefits the elites, by calling in chits post-election, you are living in a fantasy world. This is a very concrete example of how campaign contributions buy access and, thus, buy policy.
There are, by the way, options to this fleecing. My good friend David Morris, for many years, has pointed out that community-owned sports teams can do quite well:
The Green Bay Packers, one of the NFL’s best teams of the 1960s, and increasingly of the 1990s, are owned by their fans. Football champions in 1929, 1930, and 1931, Super Bowl I, II, and XXX champions, the Packers were incorporated in 1923 as a private, non-profit, tax-exempt organization. Article I of their bylaws states, “this association shall be a community project, intended to promote community welfare…its purposes shall be exclusively charitable.” The team can move only through dissolution, in which case the shareholders get only the $25 a share they put in. A board of directors, elected by the stockholders, manages the team.
This non-profit status has been threatened only once, in 1949. The Packers needed to raise more than$100,000 to avoid insolvency. Co-founder Curly Lambeau, coach since 1919, member of the board of directors, and current stadium namesake, found four men willing to invest $50,000 each if the team would become a profit-making venture. The board refused, instead choosing to authorize 10,000 shares of common stock at $25 a piece, 4,628 of which were issued. To insure that not one individual or company had too much control, the maximum number of shares per shareholder was set at 200. Instead of four owners, the team now had over 4,000. Lambeau resigned.
Theloyalty of these fans and owners is legendary. Games at Lambeau Field have been sold out for over thirty consecutive seasons. Streets are literally deserted for three hours on autumn Sunday afternoons. The waiting list for season tickets is 36,000 names long, for seats in a stadium that holds 60,000. It is common for season tickets to be willed from one generation to the next and to be hotly contested in divorce proceedings.
The bond between team and city that has been fostered through nearly fifty years of community ownership is also unique in professional sports. During training camp tradition dictates that all players -including 300 pound lineman-ride local children’s bikes to practice. Through this process players often foster friendships with individual kids throughout the preseason.
GreenBay’s metropolitan area is home to fewer than 200,000 people, yet the Packers rank in the top 20% of all professional teams in terms of franchise value. As player salaries have continued to escalate, however, the shareholders in late 1997 decided that more revenue needed to be raised for the team to remain competitive into the future. The 10,000 shares issued in 1950 were split into 10 million shares, 400,000 of which were made available to the public at $200 a piece.
He wrote that in 2009 but it is still true.
The Give Fans A Chance Act, introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer would severely
would, "forbid leagues from prohibiting community ownership. If a professional sports league ignores this provision, it will lose its sports broadcast antitrust exemption. This exemption allows teams to collaborate to sell their broadcast rights, thus increasing their value dramatically (to the tune of $17 billion over four years for the NFL)."
The problem is that community sports teams would not benefit the rich elites that fund people like Walker and Clinton. And, so, it's going to be a long slog to stop this particular fleecing of taxpayers on behalf of the wealthy.
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
BUY: The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision For America