Subject: Wisconsin Senate Votes To Give $250 Million To Billionaires
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 18:17:35 -0700

Wisconsin Senate Votes To Give $250 Million To Billionaires
Good job by Bob Cook....

http://deadspin.com/wisconsin-senate-votes-to-give-250-million-to-billiona-1718118750?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Wisconsin Senate Votes To Give $250 Million To Billionaires

The Wisconsin Senate voted 21-10 to approve $250 million in public
financing for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks. The bill will now be
sent to the state Assembly for approval. Though the Assembly is likely to
pass it, there is still some backroom negotiating and deals to be completed
beforehand. The *Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel* has exhaustive detail
<http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/bipartisan-deal-on-arena-could-come-in-senate-today-b99538510z1-315358581.html>
on the compromises struck to pass the Senate version of the bill.

Just a few days ago, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed a state budget
that includes cuts of $250 million to the University of Wisconsin system,
among other cuts to public education funding. Marc Lasry, a Bucks co-owner,
is estimated by Forbes to be worth
<http://www.forbes.com/profile/marc-lasry/> $1.87 billion, while co-owner
Wesley Edens was worth
<http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_Wesley-Edens_7QNN.html>
$2.5 billion in 2007 before suffering a downturn (though not so big of one
to prevent him from owning an NBA team) in the Great Recession. Together,
they will pay just $150 million towards the arena.

Proponents of the arena have cited the hoped for economic development in
downtown Milwaukee as a reason to spend so much public money on it. Of
course, $250 million could be used to revitalize downtown Milwaukee in
plenty of other ways than paying for an arena for billionaires. Besides,
the near-unanimous
<http://college.holycross.edu/RePEc/spe/CoatesHumphreys_LitReview.pdf>opinion
of economists is that arenas and stadiums don’t generate enough money or
spur enough job growth to justify public subsidies. Most of the jobs
created are temporary construction ones, and arenas simply shift where
leisure money is spent—at the arena instead of at a local movie theater or
at a restaurant.

The vote came one day after NBA commissioner Adam Silver claimed
<http://deadspin.com/nba-likely-to-adjust-playoff-seeding-wont-prevent-hack-1717891531>
that a “significant” number of NBA teams were still losing money. It really
is quite a brilliant racket. By crying poor the NBA claws back money from
the players, and by teams threatening to move—like the Bucks did just a
week ago
<http://deadspin.com/the-milwaukee-bucks-are-already-threatening-to-move-1716190249>—they
blackmail cities into paying for arenas instead of for desperately needed
public services.

Stamping out publicly subsidized sports facilities *should* be easy. Those
on the right don’t believe that a limited government has any business
spending taxpayer dollars on non-essential services, while those on the
left don’t believe in giving billionaires handouts. Instead, politicians of
all stripes get bullied by sports leagues, hoodwinked by bogus economic
studies, and are more concerned about voters getting angry that their
favorite team is leaving than protecting their constituents from
money-grubbing billionaires. It’s infuriating.
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Eric D. Schwerin
[email-masked]

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