Question

Facility financing is a challenge, particularly for professional teams. St. Louis just went through a painful process of offering the NFL and owner Stan Kroenke’s Rams an option for a nearly $1 billion new stadium on the banks of the Mississippi River. Of course, Kronenke and the NFL ultimately decided to move the Rams back to Los Angeles (where the franchise moved from in 1995), and Kroenke is paying $3 billion of his own money to build a new stadium. Right now, St. Louis is debating the use of public funds to build a new MLS stadium for a franchise that has yet-to-be-awarded to the city. Using www.theatlantic.com, find and read at least one article on the concept of public facility financing. Then post a brief (5-line) summary of the article (be sure to include the title, the author, and a link), followed by your reaction. Consider also: Why do you think cities agree to give huge tax breaks to teams or go into significant debt to build sports facilities? Are these good deals for taxpayers? Why or why not? Should cities like St. Louis, which struggles to fund municipal services like police, fire, and schools, offer these benefits to professional teams?

Answer 1

1. Article : How Can the U.S. Shrink the Influence of Money in Politics?
Author: RUSSELL BERMAN
(https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/fix-money-in-politics/473214/ )

Successful politicians like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump tells us that people are voting for a self-described Democratic socialist and a capitalist these politicians have agree on campaign financing, which is believed to pose risk to our system.
The Supreme Court's decision to loosen campaign-finance regulations by scrapping the limits on the total amount of money that wealthy donors could contribute influenced elections with more freedom.
The article goes on to highlight the need for empowering average people and expanding the public-financing system for campaigns, both on the federal and local levels, which is definitely not a panacea for political corruption.
The Government by the People Act, is known to have the government match small-dollar donations at a 6-to-1 rate (or higher under certain conditions) while contributing citizen a $25 refundable tax credit to encourage political donations.
Russell points that money plays one of the biggest roles in deciding whether a candidate gets noticed or an issue gets raised, and the party spends the most is more often a determining factor in the outcome of an election.

2. Cities agree to give huge tax breaks to teams or go into significant debt to build sports facilities? Are these good deals for taxpayers?

Local and state governments agreeing to build a sports facility gives taxpayers hook for years. Most Economists think that construction jobs are temporary, and ushers and concession workers work far less than 40 hours a week. The thinking was that the proposal would increase those taxes going nowhere. Dennis Zimmerman, a former Congressional Budget Office and Congressional Research Service analyst who is an expert on stadium financing. Governmental entities have long used tax-free municipal bonds to finance infrastructure projects, including sports stadiums, says the law did not take into account the fan loyalty and pride that made new taxes politically acceptable. However, investors are open to buy the bonds as a relatively risk-free vehicle to earn interest. Although the bonds generally pay lower interest rates to the buyer, they are attractive because of their tax-free status.

3. The cities struggling to fund municipal services like police, fire, and schools, offer these benefits to professional teams?

No, Increase in public safety and transportation services must be covered by either shifting resources from other city departments or raising taxes on those who live in the city, or finding other ways to transfer the costs of those new services to the commuters. The 1986 Tax Reform Act sought to rectify by saying that no more than 10 percent of the revenue generated by a project built with public money could be repaid with revenues from that project. So a team couldn’t use more than 10 percent of revenues from concessions or tickets to pay for stadiums. City services are broken down into public and internal services, former deliver value to named customers, while later deliver value to employees who deliver public services. Bruce Katz’s book, “The Metropolitan Revolution” points out that public finance might be the overlooked but key element that drives growth. The city must put forth economic development plans of its own first, to expand on the team’s development.