Monday, March 10, 2014
"Sacramento's Subsidy Kings"
The priorities of elected officials often go against the grain.
In my opinion, the income generated by taxpayer funded sports complexes never comes to fruition as advertised...
On the Townhall.com website, Paul Jacob has a story about what going on in Sacramento, CA:
"Kevin Johnson, once a National Basketball Association all-star, now serves as the Mayor of Sacramento. Johnson garnered more than a thousand career steals mostly for the Phoenix Suns; he now plays a different game of plunder. He is assisting the Sacramento Kings by dishing out $258 million in tax dollars to build the team’s owners a brand new arena.
Actually, Mayor Johnson and city officials claim they’re splurging only $258 million, and most media outlets (including, absentmindedly, my own Common Sense e-letter) have repeated that “official” number. But the true amount of the subsidy must also count the 3,700 parking spaces handed over for free to the NBA franchise, and include various infrastructure subsidies, tax breaks and other bennies, too.
Thus, the total subsidy to the billionaire Kings’ owners amounts to nearly a third more, a whopping $334 million — roughly Sacramento’s yearly cost to provide all pay and benefits for the city’s entire workforce, including pensions and healthcare for all retired workers."
