Freedom Line Blog

The Atlantic magazine tallied billions of dollars of corporate welfare pocketed by the NFL and its teams through stadium subsidies, taxpayer-funded workout facilities and other handouts. Gregg Easterbrook, the author of the piece, pointed out the hypocrisy of Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s supposedly fiscally conservative governor, who “took $4 million from taxpayers’ pockets and handed the money to the Washington Redskins, for the team to upgrade a workout facility” while the legislature was out of session. The move benefited the Redskins’ billionaire owner, Dan Snyder.

Other recent state and local handouts to NFL teams highlighted in the article include:

• More than $1 billion dollars in federal, state and local tax dollars to build and later renovate the Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints;
• As much as $950 million courtesy of Santa Clara, Calif., taxpayers to build the San Francisco 49ers new stadium;
• $506 million to the Minnesota Vikings to subsidize a large portion of the cost of the team’s new stadium (even though the state was facing a $1.1 billion deficit);
• $390 million of Washington State taxpayers money to underwrite construction costs of the Seattle Seahawks stadium that opened in 2001; and
• $4 million a year from the state of Hawaii to entice (bribe) the NFL to schedule the Pro Bowl in Honolulu.

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The National Science Foundation awarded the Smithsonian Institute a $443,010 grant to study tree biodiversity in China, CNSNews.com found.

According to the project’s grant abstract, the nearly half-million dollar grant is justified because it “advance(s) understanding of how tree biodiversity determines the functional aspects of forests and to test hypotheses concerning the resilience of forests to global change.”

The Smithsonian Institute did not respond to numerous requests by CNSNews.com to answer questions about the taxpayer-funded grant (probably because the Smithsonian Institute knew that the project is a total waste of tax dollars).

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The Netflix original series, “House of Cards,” reveals the dirty underbelly of Washington politics. It seems disturbingly fitting that the show pockets millions in handouts and tax credits at the expense of Maryland taxpayers to film the series in the Old Line State.

Southern Maryland News Net reports that Governor Martin O’Malley demanded state lawmakers increase the handouts available to film productions such as “House of Cards” during the 2013 legislative session — even after he raised taxes an astounding 40 times.

The award-winning show may be downright offensive to many of the taxpayers who subsidize its production. “House of Cards” routinely contains enough nudity and coarse language to make Hugh Hefner blush.

With the debt ceiling debate now officially behind us, most Americans will be tempted to simply exhale and move on from the psychological exhaustion of the past few weeks. Like many other conservative pundits (including our own Quin Hillyer), I have misgivings about the final agreement but generally agree that it was the best deal possible given the constraints (including Republican control of only one house of Congress).

Still, that doesn’t mean we should avoid learning the lessons of the recent dust-up, one of which is artfully put by the Atlantic’s Gregg Easterbrook (not exactly a doctrinaire conservative) writing today for Reuters:

The deal raises the federal borrowing ceiling by $2.4 trillion. This means Congress will immediately spend another $2.4 trillion. That basic point is being overlooked.

You’ve got a debt ceiling on your credit card. The ceiling is there for emergencies, and all responsible borrowers work to stay below their credit ceilings. Experience with the national debt ceiling, by contrast, shows that every dollar of available debt is always spent. Announced in doublespeak as a “savings” plan, this deal guarantees the national debt will rise another $2.4 trillion. The moment the deal becomes law, members of Congress from both parties will see an added $2.4 trillion in the cookie jar and begin raiding.

Easterbrook is right. One of the main points of contention in the recent debate was whether the President would have to come back to Congress for another debt ceiling increase within the next year or whether it would be extended into 2013 (the latter won out). But that fight misses the point. We won’t be seeing real reform until new increases in the debt ceiling become unnecessary. Until then, we’re stuck arguing over what speed to drive on the road to perdition.