An Unexpected Legislative Success
I've got to give the Washington Legislature credit. Sometimes, in their blundering around, they manage to not completely screw things up.
I refer, of course, to the act of not giving away $300M of taxpayer money to a private company with no strings attached.
I admit I dislike Pro basketball. To be honest, I don't really like basketball. Being the fat slow kid in high school left me with horrible emotional scars whenever the P.E. teacher would open up the ball closet and set the class loose in the gym, in lieu of actually teaching anything. Professional basketball involves a lot more money than high school, but the maturity level is about the same.
The thing is, it doesn't matter who's asking for the handout. I like watching baseball, and am still greatly annoyed whenever I pay taxes for the construction of the Mariners' Safeco Field. (Moreso because the taxpayers explicitly voted down the new stadium, but the state built it and taxed us anyway)
The real issue here is a simple one. It's about the private/public divide. Public money should not be handed out to private corporations unless A) there is a clear and obvious benefit to the community, and B) the public will be paid back in full within a reasonable time before the private is allowed to turn any profit. The proposed Sonics deal is none of this. Instead it is a thinly veiled handout. This is favoritism which unfairly punishes the corporation's competition, and unfairly rewards its stockholders.
The argument about public benefit that leads to these kind of handouts is spurious as well. Pro Sports organizations in particular seem to enjoy claiming to be a public service when begging for the public bread, but then are firmly and undeniably private when it comes to sharing the wealth generated by whatever those public funds created. Listen up, Howard Schultz, Clay Bennett, Hiroshi Yamauchi, and Paul Allen: You can't have it both ways. Stop trying. It's insulting to those of us you're trying to fleece.
Oh, and in case you're wondering why I'm not breaking out the champagne bottles and singing the praises of the State Legislature just yet, it's because they stopped well short of the resounding "Hell, No" that the Oklahoma City Sonics would actually understand. Instead they left the door open to waste this $300M another time, if the Sonics come back with just the right recipe of political obsequiousness. Call me a cynic, but I don't have faith the legislature to do the right thing twice. Broken clocks are still wrong most of the time, and statistics show the blind mouse is much more likely to find the cat than the cheese.
I refer, of course, to the act of not giving away $300M of taxpayer money to a private company with no strings attached.
I admit I dislike Pro basketball. To be honest, I don't really like basketball. Being the fat slow kid in high school left me with horrible emotional scars whenever the P.E. teacher would open up the ball closet and set the class loose in the gym, in lieu of actually teaching anything. Professional basketball involves a lot more money than high school, but the maturity level is about the same.
The thing is, it doesn't matter who's asking for the handout. I like watching baseball, and am still greatly annoyed whenever I pay taxes for the construction of the Mariners' Safeco Field. (Moreso because the taxpayers explicitly voted down the new stadium, but the state built it and taxed us anyway)
The real issue here is a simple one. It's about the private/public divide. Public money should not be handed out to private corporations unless A) there is a clear and obvious benefit to the community, and B) the public will be paid back in full within a reasonable time before the private is allowed to turn any profit. The proposed Sonics deal is none of this. Instead it is a thinly veiled handout. This is favoritism which unfairly punishes the corporation's competition, and unfairly rewards its stockholders.
The argument about public benefit that leads to these kind of handouts is spurious as well. Pro Sports organizations in particular seem to enjoy claiming to be a public service when begging for the public bread, but then are firmly and undeniably private when it comes to sharing the wealth generated by whatever those public funds created. Listen up, Howard Schultz, Clay Bennett, Hiroshi Yamauchi, and Paul Allen: You can't have it both ways. Stop trying. It's insulting to those of us you're trying to fleece.
Oh, and in case you're wondering why I'm not breaking out the champagne bottles and singing the praises of the State Legislature just yet, it's because they stopped well short of the resounding "Hell, No" that the Oklahoma City Sonics would actually understand. Instead they left the door open to waste this $300M another time, if the Sonics come back with just the right recipe of political obsequiousness. Call me a cynic, but I don't have faith the legislature to do the right thing twice. Broken clocks are still wrong most of the time, and statistics show the blind mouse is much more likely to find the cat than the cheese.