Reply #14: So should every form of entertainment get a sales tax subsidy? [View All]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

A lot of people enjoy shopping as a recreational pastime. Should shopping malls get sales tax subsidies?

I don't know about you, but I was around here twenty-two years ago when the Metrodome was supposed to be the answer to all our sporting prayers. If it's not adequate, that's the team owners' problem, not mine.

My position remains the same. Baseball teams are a private business, not a public service. If there's that much demand for their games, then they should be able to build a stadium on their own dime, borrowing against current property or future earnings like every other business owner.

If there's not enough ticket revenue to support the stadium of their dreams, then they should scale back their plans and build a more modest stadium.

What especially frosts me is that our govt. officials seem to think it's perfectly okay to tax the citizens (and the amount is irrelevant) for the further profit of rich team owners, but when you talk about raising taxes for public services that help the working poor, then everyone (except the team owners) is supposed to be self-sufficient.

Just the other day, the head of the Metro Council absolutely nixed the idea of new revenue for Metro Transit. The legislature refuses to raise taxes to keep the working poor on Minnesota Care. But a stadium--ah, now we're talking! Public subsidies for the skyboxes of the wealthy!

That "quality of life" argument doesn't work with me. I'm old enough to remember Minneapolis before either the Twins or the Vikings came to town. In many ways, the quality of life was higher then than it is now: a superb school system, libraries that were open every day, a low crime rate, very low tuition at the U of M, never a word about cutting back on park maintenance, much less urban sprawl, frequent bus service, more local businesses instead of chain stores. No, I'm not saying that the advent of pro sports caused the decline. Not at all. I'm just saying that there's more to the quality of life than the presence of a pro sports team, and many of the factors that make up a high quality of life--for everyone, not just sports fans-- are doing very poorly at the moment.