Another Corporate Money Grab

October 28, 2005

 

Perhaps you heard the recent news that the Nashville Sounds minor league baseball team is all but assured of getting a new stadium in downtown Nashville. You also may have heard that a portion of this project will be taxpayer funded. If you thought funding of the new ballpark only affected those living in Nashville, think again.

 

Indeed, the city of Nashville is coughing up all sorts of cash in the way of donating land to the project, $17 million in up-front payments, and forgiving all sorts of taxes, but the state's obligation can be found in the fine print. Nearly half of the financing of the $43 million ballpark (the price tag will surely climb substantially) is through what's known as tax increment financing . That's a fancy term for corporate welfare. According to the Nashville City Paper, “ The Sounds would be allowed to use all state sales tax and a portion of local sales tax generated by the stadium to repay financing loans.” Did you catch that? All state sales tax revenue that normally would go into the state coffers will be kept by the Sounds to pay for their new place of business.

 

Let's just imagine for a moment that you are building a new retail business and you need a new facility. Let's say you're in the sporting goods business. This is like saying that every time someone pays state sales tax on a football or an exercise machine or a fishing pole, you ring up the sales tax then put it in your pocket to help pay for your new building. How many of you retailers are getting that kind of a deal?

 

Proponents of the new project claim a relocated ballpark will help “revitalize” downtown Nashville. Is that so? Why is it that one of the highest crime areas in Atlanta, a city with one of the highest crime rates in the country, is the area around Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves?

 

Something else to consider: Greer Stadium, the current home of the Nashville Sounds, is barely 25 years old. That's hardly old enough to warrant abandoning but certainly old enough to determine what it's done for the neighborhood. Greer stadium sits in one of the least desirable sections of Nashville. That's one reason they cite for wanting a new facility, but if a new ballpark will revitalize a neighborhood why are the Sounds sitting in the middle of a dump?

 

Your state tax dollars went to build a stadium for the Tennessee Titans, a team most Tennesseans will never see in person. Although I'm a huge Titans fan, the facts are indisputable. Public funding of that venture was a bad idea. Now your state tax dollars have been committed to another corporate welfare project. How long will we stand idly by while our elected officials pick our pockets and funnel those dollars into the coffers of millionaires?

 

Proponents of this corporate welfare tout the public good such a project will serve. The “public good” they point to is added business to downtown Nashville. As study after study has pointed out, citizens only have a certain amount of discretionary spending. Sports facilities like these merely redirect that finite amount of money. The “public good” is really the special interest of those pushing the project.

 

Remember the Valentine Doctrine: Government is there to do only what the private sector won't, can't, or shouldn't do. The private sector certainly could fully fund the Nashville Sounds ballpark. They most assuredly should fund it. But they won't because they can pull another one over on the taxpayers.