[Mpls] Twins: Progressive Ticket Tax or Obsolecence

[David Shove]

Amen, huzzah, and right on!

-David Shove
Roseville



On Fri, 2 Dec 2005, Gary Hoover wrote:

> Jeremy W. scribes, in part:
> >>>
> One question that I have for both the pro- and anti-stadium crowd is why we
> can't hang the public obligation for a new stadium on ticket prices?  The
> Twins average about 1.9 million fans a year.  Maybe 2 million with a new
> ball park.  (Everyone involved with building the dome need not apply.)  2
> million folks, over ten years taxed an average of $10 per head rounds out to
> $200 million.  Set a progressive ticket tax rate, a $9 ticket becomes a $12
> ticket and a $44 ticket goes to $75, something like that.  I recognize that
> a bond would have to be floated and the ticket taxes used to repay the debt.
> I also have not figured in the financing.  Nevertheless, what are the
> challenges to having the 2 million people who would most appreciate a new
> stadium pay for it?
> <<<
>
> Jeremy's suggestion of a progressive ticket tax to pay for the Twins (or
> any?) new pro-sports stadium to me.
>
> It is also the most "Free Market" suggestion going.  Let the Twins figure
> our what people are willing to pay for various seats and amenities, and work
> within that budget to get commercial financing.
>
> The corporate socialism of America is so glaringly obvious when it comes to
> professional sports.  Free marketeers begin whining at the thought that
> sports might have to operate like a real business or change the plan
> altogether to fit a new "market."
>
> The second, more profound issue is that we continue to waste time and money
> and energy focused on building anti-sustainable structures that will be
> obsolete very soon due to high energy costs of operation.  Natural gas price
> has quintupled in the last three years or so and is likely to climb higher.
> Meanwhile, people are likely to have less discretionary money to spend in
> the coming years, not more.  We will spend more on necessities and less on
> the distractions that have become so prominent in our short-lived Energy
> Binge economy.  Professional sports as we know them have become a
> steroid-saturated monstrosity, and will not be sustainable in any way.
>
> So why talk of investing public dollars in pro-sports at all?  Let us
> "starve the corporate welfare beast, or at least shrink it down to such a
> size that we can drown it in the bathtub."
>
> Better to pursue real economic development by investing in sustainable urban
> infrastructure without all the vestigial anti-sustainable structures choking
> the landscape and starving our budgets.
>
> -- pedaling for peace and ecojustice -- Gary Hoover
>
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