Bills for Taxpayers
Taxpayers lose. The poor Buffalo Bills are getting $850 freaking goddamn million from taxpayers whether or not those made to contribute enjoy football or notice public stadiums only make owners richer. Top hat-wearers simply can’t afford a command center for their action figures, so those who coast to the supermarket in order to afford enough breadcrumbs for meatloaf are pressed into action. The film adaptation won’t be as stirring as hoped.
Terry and Kim Pegula are multibillionaire welfare queens. The Buffalo Bills owners made taxpayers partners without consent or benefits. Oh, and nobody else gets shares. Followers of present politics and professional sports are unsurprised by handouts to those equipped to live the most opulently. The fact state intervention is now business as usual merely makes ransom payments worse.
The rare instance of bipartisanship gets squandered by shrieking. Entitlements for the richest unite liberals and conservatives in resistance. The former feel revenue taken from paychecks is best suited to fund day care for orphans of illegal immigrants, while the latter thinks earnings should never be seized in the first place to enable private financing of constitutional law centers at gun ranges.
But brutes win again. Politics are depressingly dominated by a coalition of those who live in panic of not cheering and enemies of mathematics. Greedy owners exploit the fear of losing sports teams to Albuquerque in order to manipulate compliant politicians who don’t want to be in office when franchises flee. It’s easy to feel relieved about a 30-year lease without perusing alarming details. Some inattentive fans just want to know the team isn’t in danger of relocating without paying attention to how costly the chains are.
Rubes applauding like seals align with demented fools who think government is good at spurring economies. Here in reality, grand schemers in state capitals never gets the score back to zero, much less ahead. The only good thing about publicly-funded venues is that it’s the one issue that unites economists who universally note they’re terrible investments. Force is a troubling sign. Winning by cheating is never rewarding.
Building bleachers around fake grass so men can hit each other is just another wasteful involuntary cash toss. If they’re good deals, owners should be glad to pay crane operators out of pocket with future profits in mind. If they’re bad, then the entire shady enterprise must be re-examined. A state’s core role is apparently to keep sports owners artificially wealthy. Government truly inspires.
An impossibly rich league mugged you to feed its children. The NFL had dump trucks full of cash before you needed that to buy bread.
The Bills are still not in Buffalo despite their name. Their location beats the New Jersey Jets and Giants, but they should nonetheless head to their spiritual center. The chance to redevelop a city they ostensibly call home will be postponed until at least the mid-2050s. It’s too bad that, say, the abandoned housing projects blighting a huge portion of the city couldn’t be turned into a thriving sports site except for how it totally could. Missed opportunities don’t only define this team’s play.
There were even worse mistakes in the ’70s than the Starland Vocal Band. The strategy to deal with residents escaping declining metropolises was to make it a race. As a result of moving major projects outside city limits, urban areas decayed even faster while residential areas were disrupted by capital projects like a strange dream. Now, the Bills stay in an unsuitable neighborhood at public expense, Squandering a second chance is like re-hiring Rex Ryan.
Orchard Park should be the Empire State’s economic powerhouse instead of a quiet suburb with a massive coliseum stuck in the middle of it. The Bronx somehow isn’t paradisiacal around Yankee Stadium despite an astounding fortune sunk into it by Albany, either, but there’s no other way the obscure team that calls it home could ever make its own bucks.
It isn’t fair how others got to rip off the public. Previous panhandling clubs got their philosophically and economically childish demands for funding met, and the Pegulas aren’t about to be grownups. Obeying precedent is a mindless way to ensure misery continues. Maybe stadiums would be cheaper if owners were watching their own budgets. But I’m sure government is renowned for keeping down costs.
These alleged leaders can’t be coached up. This a singularly awful time to allow politicians to determine the area’s sporting future for decades. The arrogantly lunkheaded Kathy Hochul makes up for not killing grandparents by the thousands or fondling every woman within reach like her inept mob boss predecessor by invading even more deeply into everyday life. Getting suckered by manipulative sports owners into paying bills is a sign she’s as shrewd practically as she is philosophically. She thinks she’s being complemented.
The state couldn’t lower taxes and let those who actually use the facility fund it like, oh, some business. Attendees could afford tickets on account of how those who rule over them don’t take as much from their salaries. Compulsory payments aren’t enough: the team is naturally still charging for personal seat licenses, which is a payment for the right to buy season tickets. People’s republic-level confiscation is just the start.
It may not be impossible for someone worth 10 figures to get a loan. The rest of us shouldn’t even bother to try if the very richest are unable to secure autonomous financing. Stick to checking return slots in any remaining payphones. The NHL team the Pegulas own plays in an arena named after a bank if they’d like an idea of where they could find funding for their little athletic enterprise.
Taxpayers back a stadium regardless of whether they cheer. And nobody should support a state whose projects turn out so poorly that they may as well be tanking. There’s no draft for better politicians with nerve who can negotiate. Playoff outcasts couldn’t make it in the private sector for good reason.
Mandatory contributions to remain in an inappropriate spot so bad that only government could’ve chosen it is how New York does things. It’s a great deal otherwise.
Critical fans are treated suspiciously for noticing results. Those aware of the state’s spectacularly awful won-loss record are the ones trying to encourage advancement. Supporters can chant for a team and still loathe how its owners mooch off citizens. Decades of voluntarily-displayed loyalty apparently didn’t create enough trust. Cheering for mercenaries to control placement of a ball wasn’t irrational enough.
