{"id":19001,"date":"2013-09-27T18:35:20","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T22:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=19001"},"modified":"2013-09-27T23:11:40","modified_gmt":"2013-09-28T03:11:40","slug":"even-more-stupid-ways-government-wastes-your-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/19001\/even-more-stupid-ways-government-wastes-your-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Even More Stupid Ways Government Wastes Your Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2013\/10\/how-the-nfl-fleeces-taxpayers\/309448\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Atlantic<\/em> magazine<\/a> 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, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2013\/10\/how-the-nfl-fleeces-taxpayers\/309448\/\" target=\"_blank\">pointed out<\/a> the hypocrisy of Bob McDonnell, Virginia\u2019s supposedly fiscally conservative governor, who \u201ctook $4\u00a0million from taxpayers\u2019 pockets and handed the money to the Washington Redskins, for the team to upgrade a workout facility\u201d while the legislature was out of session. The move benefited the Redskins\u2019 billionaire owner, Dan Snyder.<\/p>\n<p>Other recent state and local handouts to NFL teams <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2013\/10\/how-the-nfl-fleeces-taxpayers\/309448\/\" target=\"_blank\">highlighted in the article<\/a> include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>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;<\/li>\n<li>As much as $950\u00a0million courtesy of Santa Clara, Calif., taxpayers to build the San Francisco 49ers new stadium;<\/li>\n<li>$506\u00a0million to the Minnesota Vikings to subsidize a large portion of the cost of the team\u2019s new stadium (even though the state was facing a $1.1 billion deficit);<\/li>\n<li>$390\u00a0million of Washington State taxpayers money to underwrite construction costs of the Seattle Seahawks stadium that opened in 2001; and<\/li>\n<li> $4\u00a0million a year from the state of Hawaii to entice (bribe) the NFL to schedule the Pro Bowl in Honolulu.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"center\">***<\/p>\n<p>The National Science Foundation awarded the Smithsonian Institute\u00a0a $443,010 grant to study tree biodiversity in China, <a href=\"http:\/\/cnsnews.com\/news\/article\/penny-starr\/feds-give-smithsonian-443010-study-tree-biodiversity-china#sthash.oMpDR0ml.dpuf\" target=\"_blank\">CNSNews.com<\/a> found.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/awardsearch\/showAward?AWD_ID=1354741\" target=\"_blank\">project&#8217;s grant abstract<\/a>, the nearly half-million dollar grant is justified because it \u201cadvance(s) understanding of how tree biodiversity determines the functional aspects of forests and to test hypotheses concerning the resilience of forests to global change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Smithsonian Institute <a href=\"http:\/\/cnsnews.com\/news\/article\/penny-starr\/feds-give-smithsonian-443010-study-tree-biodiversity-china#sthash.oMpDR0ml.dpuf\" target=\"_blank\">did not respond<\/a> 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).<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">***<\/p>\n<p>The Netflix original series, \u201cHouse of Cards,\u201d\u00a0reveals the dirty underbelly of Washington politics. It seems disturbingly fitting that the show <a href=\"http:\/\/smnewsnet.com\/archives\/68887\" target=\"_blank\">pockets millions in handouts and tax credits<\/a> at the expense of Maryland taxpayers to film the series in the Old Line State.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/smnewsnet.com\/archives\/68887\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Southern Maryland News Net <\/em>reports<\/a> that Governor Martin O\u2019Malley demanded state lawmakers increase the handouts available to film productions such as &#8220;House of Cards&#8221; during the 2013 legislative session &#8212; even after he raised taxes an astounding 40 times.<\/p>\n<p>The award-winning show may be downright offensive to many of the taxpayers who subsidize its production. \u201cHouse of Cards\u201d routinely contains enough nudity and coarse language to make Hugh Hefner blush.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019s supposedly fiscally conservative governor, who \u201ctook $4\u00a0million from taxpayers\u2019 pockets and handed the money [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3721,4289,2915,4287,4291,4290,319,4285,4288,4286],"class_list":["post-19001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-bob-mcdonnell","tag-dan-snyder","tag-gregg-easterbrook","tag-handouts","tag-house-of-cards","tag-martin-omalley","tag-nfl","tag-smithsonian","tag-the-atlantic","tag-tree-biodiversity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19001"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19004,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19001\/revisions\/19004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}