I only need one reason why taxpayers should never fund stadiums:
Stadiums are not politics.
Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
71–80 of 296 posts
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#72" Stadiums add little or nothing to the local economy."
I think that AT&T Stadium (Arlington, TX) may be a good example of one that's helped. One article from 2015 says "WrestleMania — the Super Bowl of pro wrestling — is coming to Arlington’s AT&T Stadium in April, and it could pack a financial wallop for local businesses."
The new Rangers stadium nearby has benefited, and so has nearby Six Flags & Hurricane Harbor. The new Arlington entertainment district and local businesses have been picked up as well. It feels like the whole area has improved.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#73Needs to be made illegal (not just stadiums) http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/on-leadership/col-eco... or at least not federally subsidized https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/134... https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/ is a good general resource on the issue.
How would one propose to make it illegal for an elected government to finance construction of a public building? I mean, yeah, sports stadiums are wasteful. But how would you draft that such that it wouldn't eliminate libraries and museums? I mean, I agree with you in spirit but at the end of the day the whole point of a democratic government is that it's empowered to work to better our collective lives. And that has…
Or you could make teams pay for their own stadiums. They take the revenue so why shouldn't they? The equivalent is Amazon requiring local government to provide them with automated warehouses for them to relocate to (or remain in) that locality.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, sure. That works if these things are unpopular. They're not. That's the problem. Lost in the discussion of how many hundreds of million dollars St. Louis lost in its relationship with the Rams is the fact that the city loved that team and the stadium construction was a huge deal and a big political victory. The underlying flaw in the reasoning here is that it's all based on a personal feeling that "My governmen…
>> the city loved that team and the stadium construction was a huge deal and a big political victory Can you quantify "the city loved"? I'm sure the construction was "a huge deal", large construction projects almost always are. Something professional politicians choose to support != something that a majority of voters would choose to support, given the chance.
You can’t quantify love or sentiment unless you accept brand loyalty and subjective measures. It seems like a silly thing to request but perhaps that is your point. If these were ballot initiatives for funding similar to public transport you would see a bit more rejections from anyone outside of the city centers. If we go by popular vote you will likely see most cities vote to keep their teams because we’ve all been raised to think of them as ours despite owning nothing.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#75why do they call this socialist in the first sentence and crony capitalist in the 3rd.
yes, this is clearly a case of communist-capitalism a la China and Russia; there's nothing socialist about it.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#76I only need one reason why taxpayers should never fund stadiums: Stadiums are not politics.
I don't know about that. Why else would building a colosseum in Civ 1 make three unhappy people content?
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#77Nothing should be subsidized.
> Nothing should be subsidized
There went universal healthcare in all nations that have it. If you think the yellow vests rioting in France over a gasoline tax (among other things) are bad, just wait until you see how Europe burns to the ground over that one. In the US, Social Security has no actual lockbox ("trust fund"), it's a fraud in terms of funding; without perpetual vast subsidies, Social Security would immediately begin to collapse. Medicaid would go away instantly as an entirely subsidized program. About half the US would lose health coverage. The 44 million people in the US receiving food benefits via SNAP would lose that.
The argument is always going to be over what should be subsidized, between conflicting factions. The number of people willing to see all subsidies eliminated is practically zero for political purposes.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're getting heavily downvoted but at least here in san jose what you're saying is true. Many libraries are now literal homeless shelters. My wife is a librarian and her libarary just became a shelter despite the constant problems that are the homeless. She has to clean human shit off the childrens' computers but they keep inviting this mess in.
Getting rid of public funding for libraries because homeless people seek shelter there only deprives the homeless of shelter (which they have a right to, however badly they smell) and it deprives the public of the amenities public libraries provide. It doesn't solve any problems. If so many people have such a problem with homeless people in libraries, maybe their city needs more homeless shelters that serve the same…
I didn't say anything about funding, just that in San Jose at least libraries are absolutely homeless shelters.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#79In Switzerland the citizens can vote about such businesses and still they decided last to pay for a new stadium last year.
I guess you speak about the new stadium in Zürich. The government actually doesn't pay for the new stadium. The deal is that the city gives investors some land for free, where they can build the stadium. The investors also get some more land where they can build housing to get a return on there spendings. The city itself doesn't spend anything on building or maintaining the stadium.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#80Needs to be made illegal (not just stadiums) http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/on-leadership/col-eco... or at least not federally subsidized https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/134... https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/ is a good general resource on the issue.
It's all out of hand at this point. A billion dollars to keep the community's sports team doesn't seem so harsh compared to the other companies.