{"id":24911,"date":"2011-12-16T07:38:01","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T13:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=24911"},"modified":"2011-12-16T09:51:37","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T15:51:37","slug":"stadium-debate-zeroes-and-heros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=24911","title":{"rendered":"Stadium Debate: Zeroes And Heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s be clear on this; I oppose government funding for stadiums. \u00a0All of it. \u00a0Any government. \u00a0Ever. \u00a0End of sentence.<\/p>\n

Zigi Wilf could afford to build his own stadium. \u00a0But the status quo in the sports industry today is to treat stadia as a public good – which is a loathsome perversion of the idea of “public good”.<\/p>\n

The big “Zero” in this debate so far has been Governor Dayton. The Governor’s entire approach <\/a>to this issue could be summarized as “Hey, you guys – get something done! I don’t want the NFL goons tramping through my office again”; it’s what peple call “leading from the rear”.<\/p>\n

And if there’s a hero? It’s the Senate GOP Caucus. It was the Senate Republicans – especially Senator Robling<\/a> – who’ve managed to cut the crap and get “both” sides – the NFL, the state, and the various local and county governments who,alternately, crave the crowds and commerce but who’ve gone all Ron Paul about paying the tab, and of course RT Rybak, who wants to commit his city full of compliant DFL sheeple and ripe business sucks to a big share of the tab…<\/p>\n

…which is dumb, but hey, I didn’t vote for him. Anyway – for cutting to the chase, and getting Zygi Wilf out of all <\/em>of our pockets and fixing him up with a politician who actually believes he has the political oomph to stick his city with a $1000\/head bill.<\/p>\n

Am I cynical to say “it’s your problem, now, Minneapolis”? \u00a0(No, I’m not being a hypocrite; I have been to exactly zero Vikings games at the Dome since 1987 – and even then, I was working).<\/p>\n

On a bit of a tangent – this is a great example of an issue where principle and politics are completely at war. \u00a0It is a fact that if you’re a conservative, spending public money on stadiums is anathema. \u00a0It’s also a fact that this is a state full of voters who want their damn football team, and they don’t really care (or think that hard about) who pays for it. \u00a0Emphasis on “voters”.<\/p>\n

It’s not the ideal solution – especially if you’re in Minneapolis – but the fact that we have <\/em>a (potential) solution is entirely due to the Senate GOP caucus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s be clear on this; I oppose government funding for stadiums. \u00a0All of it. \u00a0Any government. \u00a0Ever. \u00a0End of sentence. Zigi Wilf could afford to build his own stadium. \u00a0But the status quo in the sports industry today is to treat stadia as a public good – which is a loathsome perversion of the idea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,72,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics","category-mngop","category-the-rare-sports-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24914,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24911\/revisions\/24914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}