Here's How Congress Can Hit the NFL in the Wallet
September 27, 2017
Daniel Greenfield

Earlier this week, I laid out a case for, among other things, ending the NFL's illegitimately gotten anti-trust exemption that's linked to, among other things, ESPN and your high cable bill.

But there is a bill that could hit the NFL in its pocketbook right now.
[/quote] Last June, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford put forth a bill that would ban professional sports teams from using municipal bonds in relation to federal funding to build their sports arenas.

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A companion measure to the legislation was already proposed in the House back in March by Oklahoma Republican Rep. Steve Russell.

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We are talking about billions of dollars.

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Lankford said in a statement in June: "The federal government is responsible for a lot of important functions, but financing sports stadiums for multimillion—sometimes billion—dollar franchises is definitely not one of them. Using billions of federal taxpayer dollars for the subsidization of private stadiums when we have real infrastructure needs in our country is not a good way to prioritize a limited amount of funds."

One report on Watchdog.org said that over the past two decades, the NFL has raked in about $7 billion of taxpayer money to spend on stadium renovation and building.

Michael Sargent, an infrastructure expert at The Heritage Foundation, wrote about how sports teams use specially crafted tax breaks to get the public to finance their massive projects.

“Tax-exempt municipal bonds are typically reserved for public-use projects such as bridges, water systems, and other infrastructure,” Sargent wrote for The Daily Signal. “Yet because of a loophole in the tax code, private-use stadiums can take advantage of this tax break, and have done so prolifically.”

“The federal government has subsidized newly constructed or majorly renovated professional sports stadiums to the tune of $3.2 billion federal taxpayer dollars since 2000,” wrote Alexander K. Gold, Austin J. Drukker, and Ted Gayer in a 2016 Brookings report. “But because high-income bond holders receive a windfall gain for holding municipal bonds, the resulting loss in total revenue to the federal government is even larger at $3.7 billion.”

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That's a whole lot of money. And it's the kind of dirty politicians that would get a pass most of the time. But then the NFL decided to declare war on America. Team owners who knew better joined the fray.

You shouldn't be able to wage war on America. And rob it blind too.

But it's up to voters to contact their local congressman or senator and ask them to put America and American taxpayers first.


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