Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took a break from the presidential campaign trail Wednesday to commit $250 million in taxpayer money to pay for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Walker’s come under a lot of criticism from both left and right for his arena funding plan, including an article I wrote at the Huffington Post after he defended his plan on ABC’s “This Week.” Such deals are paid for by average taxpayers to benefit millionaire players and billionaire owners. But millionaires and billionaires have more influence than average taxpayers, and the pictures around stadium deals are great:
Calling the new NBA stadium a “dynamic attraction for the entire state of Wisconsin,” Walker signed the bill at the Wisconsin State Fair Park surrounded by state lawmakers, local officials and Bucks team president Peter Feigin.
The economics, not so good. Walker has claimed a ”return on investment” of three to one, which he says is “a good deal” for the taxpayers. Economists disagree. As Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys wrote in a 2004 Cato study criticizing the proposed D.C. stadium subsidy, “The wonder is that anyone finds such figures credible….
Our conclusion, and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city’s economy. The net economic impact of professional sports in Washington, D.C., and the 36 other cities that hosted professional sports teams over nearly 30 years, was a reduction in real per capita income over the entire metropolitan area.
Republican voters are looking for fiscal conservatives and straight talkers. We’re hearing a lot of denunciations of corporate welfare and crony capitalism. And here’s a leading conservative candidate for president sitting down in front of cameras to sign a bill handing $250 million in taxpayers’ money (Bloomberg says $400 million with interest) to wealthy owners of a sports team (some of whom, no doubt coincidentally, are large donors to his campaign), in defiance of free-market advocates and virtually all economists. Will the other Republican candidates take him on? Will they denounce this wasteful extravagance?
Or will we have to rely on John Oliver to do the job small-government Republicans ought to be doing?
Democrats are the ones who suck. They take money out of the economy from the people who earned it. Then give it to deadbeats who refuse to work. In contradiction to Gods word. God said if you don't work you don't eat. As redleghunter redleghunter accurately pointed out.
I don't think the government should fund sports arenas. It's not my biggest is issue though. Not by a long shot.
No he didn't. Paul said that. And he said it within the context of freeloaders in a particular Church, which is not the same thing as people in poverty.
Jesus actually said that his followers would reap what they did not sow. Of course, that doesn't mean freeload either.
#32. To: Vicomte13, A K A Stone, GarySpFc, liberator (#20)
No he didn't. Paul said that. And he said it within the context of freeloaders in a particular Church, which is not the same thing as people in poverty.
Indeed Paul did comment to the Thessalonians on idle freeloaders and not on those who could not physically sustain themselves nor their families. I thought I made that clear in the thread where we discussed the topic.
Paul did preface his epistle to the Thessalonians as authoritative and from God. Paul was very specific when he was offering advice vs. what was revealed to him from the Holy Spirit.
On idleness notice below Paul invokes Chirst:
6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. 9 We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
He also goes in great detail to Timothy on the matter which I will share tomorrow Lord willing.
We also should remember the NT church did not give "prescriptions" on how government should treat the poor. That is clearly seen in the NT as a mission for the ekklesia.
We also know that in the NT church that charity was done in the Name of Christ. It was Christ centered.
As with anything considered "good", if it does not glorify God, it glorifies or props up something else. This could lead, no matter how "good" to some upholding an entity other than God as god.
