Field of Schemes: Congress Probes How New Sports Stadiums Turn Public Money into Private Profit

[Joanne98]

A congressional committee is investigating whether New York City and the New York Yankees wildly inflated the value of the site for the team’s new stadium to float nearly $1 billion in tax-free bonds.

Guests:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, chair of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

Bettina Damiani, Project Director of Good Jobs New York

Neil deMause, Author of Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit. His website is Field of Schemes

JUAN GONZALEZ: A congressional subcommittee has launched a probe into the use of public financing to build sports complexes like the new Yankee Stadium. The Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, will hold hearings this September on whether land for the new stadium in the Bronx was wildly inflated to justify nearly a billion dollars in tax-free bonds.


Congressman Kucinich is looking into whether city officials overvalued the stadium site by several times its actual price. The Yankees would have avoided—or the bond-holders would have avoided millions in taxes, because they would be exempt from paying taxes on interest they earn. Meanwhile, the Yankees have requested an additional $336 million in tax-free bonds to help complete the stadium.


In a letter sent earlier this month to Yankees president Randy Levine, New York Assemblyman Richard Brodsky noted that the tax-free interest earned on the stadium bonds “normally would go into the city’s coffers to pay for schools, police and health care.”


Today, we host a discussion on public subsidies for sports stadiums. Congressman Dennis Kucinich joins us from the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. I’m also joined here in the firehouse studio by two guests: Bettina Damiani is the project director of Good Jobs New York, and Neil deMause is a writer and the author of Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit.


I’d like to begin with Congressman Kucinich. You have, as of last week, made a request to the City of New York and to the New York Yankees for a variety of documents as part of your continuing investigation into possible abuses of federal laws and IRS regulations relating to these kind of stadium projects. Could you tell us what you’re trying to do with that investigation and why you decided to focus in on New York and the Yankees?


REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, this is a project that’s imminent, and we have—the thing that I think, you know, caught my attention is when you have an independent appraisal of the land that the Yankees want to get for their new stadium of $45 per square foot, and yet the city had an appraisal that appraised the same land at $275 a square foot. Now, what our committee is trying to find out is, does the city’s assessment represent a deliberate inflation of the value of the land so that there would be a greater number of tax-free bonds issued, thereby raising questions of, you know, an inappropriate increased diversion of federal tax monies for this kind of private project.


http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/30/field_of_schemes_congress_probes_how

[Catshrink]

1. Molly Ivins covered * role in this scheme in "Bushwhacked."

Just another example of him bailing out.

[boomerbust]

2. Miller Park

Milwaukee- Paid for with sales tax increase. Year later Brewers were sold.

[norepubsin08]

3. No Shit!!!

There never should be any public money for private sports teams or stadiums. Either the city or state owns all outright and then the public funds it and reaps the profits or if it is privately owned, it sinks or swims on its own. Fuck corporate fat cat republican voter welfare!!!!