'Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, and Rep. Scott Randolph D-Orlando, said Tuesday that their bills would give voters the final say on such (sports) tax breaks.
'Bennett said it was "absolutely crazy" to give $60 million to the Marlins while Floridians are suffering from high property taxes and insurance costs.
(Of course he's right. It's obvious that if the subsidy's voted down, all of Florida's tax and insurance problems will disappear.)
'"If you're going to ask somebody in the Panhandle to help pay for a football stadium in Tampa or a baseball stadium in Miami, I believe they should have a right to vote on it," he said. "It's their money."
(But the gracious people of Pensacola and Destin want us to have our stadium out of the goodness of their hearts. We should send them a card thanking them when they pay for it. Although I don't know if they will like paying even more money to add referendums to their ballots or, heaven forbid, set up a special election to decide if they are willing to pay for something we all know they would love to pay for in the first place.)
'Randolph used a number of sports analogies to make his case at a press conference that featured hockey sticks, mini basketball goals and footballs covered in fake dollar bills.
'"In a democracy, our voters should be the referees. If they see local government step out of bounds they should get to call a foul," he said.
(Continuing the analogy, if players from Orlando and Bradenton cross into the south side of the field to try to take the Pensacola pigskin away, the southern team should do a little hat trick on their facemask and personally foul them all the way up to Ocala. Yay, democracy! )
'The bill would also require a local referendum if a county or city wished to give tax breaks for a local effort to help a sports team.
(Too site-specific. Why not a national vote to determine whether the state and the county and the city votes can be substantiated? How about a UN resolution? Take it to Intergalactic Court!)
'Bennett said the $60 million that the Marlins want to help build a new stadium could be used to pay for health care for 355,000 children, for 30,000 police officers or 12,600 teachers.
(Maybe, if the 60 mil was flung all at once, but unfortunately, it's $2 million for 30 years. By the time 2037 comes along, $2 million will get you an aspirin tablet and a couple of slabs of soylent green.)
'"If the Florida Marlins or any other baseball team can spend $52 million to pay a guy to throw a ball 90 feet, I think they can kind of fix their own stadium," he said.
(True. The only thing those blood-sucking Marlins have done is make over $200 million in committments to construct a building that they wouldn't even own. The sheer audacity to imagine that they could possibly hoard some extra cash so that they could brazenly pay for someone to throw a ball 90 feet or, even worse, 60!)
'Bennett said Crist supported the idea of requiring a vote before tax breaks were given. But Crist said he hadn't decided yet.
'"I wouldn't rule it out," Crist said, after explaining why the teams were important to Florida.
'"I look at sports as an economic development opportunity," he said. "It's not outside the realm of reasonableness for us at the state level to feel that it's worthwhile to nurture the teams that are already here."
'But many economists say public financing of sports teams does nothing to help local economies since money spent at sporting events would be spent elsewhere anyway.
'"I'm sure it's better to have them than to not have them," Crist said.'
(For clarification I called the Governor's office and got this message: "Hello, this is Governor Crist. I agree with everything you want. Please say anything at all at the tone, and I'll agree with it too...*beep*.) (LakelandLedger)
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