How Milwaukee’s Bucks could cost Scott Walker

The Bucks finished dead last in 2014, and had the worst season in team history. Approximately 1,000 fewer fans showed up each night and the owners sold the team to a pair of New York billionaires for half of a billion dollars. In 2015, the Bucks rebounded to a 41-41 season and made the playoffs, but are still poised to leave the state without a new arena. The team’s billionaire owners have made it abundantly clear they would not carry the entire financial burden.

Enter Scott Walker, the presidential contender. On the campaign trail, he portrays himself as the conservative hero who took on Madison’s liberals, won repeatedly, and solved many of Wisconsin’s woes. His plan to save the Bucks is dubbed “Cheaper to keep them,” because he argues that the Milwaukee would lose more economically in the Bucks’ absence than if the local government intervenes. He intends to use uncollected debt — unpaid court fines, fees, delinquent property taxes, and ambulance charges — to help service the millions of dollars necessary to build a new stadium.

The newest proposal would cap the state’s contribution at a total of $80 million. The state would put forward $4 million each year for the next 20 years to help pay for the stadium. Walker’s plan reduces the state’s contribution significantly from his previous proposals, and he insists it would be a net gain for taxpayers.

“We’ve considered the financial impacts on the state should the Bucks stay or go, and quite simply, we found it’s cheaper to keep them,” Walker said when announcing his newest proposal. “Our plan is the result of a state and local, public and private alliance, and it is developed with the goal of ensuring a good return to our state taxpayers. Under this plan, for every dollar the state invests, state taxpayers will get a $3 return on that investment.”

Is Milwaukee’s best idea more taxes and government intervention? Many conservatives certainly do not think so. But Milwaukee selected the first socialist mayor of a major U.S. city and the nation’s first socialist congressman. Some have argued that “community ownership” successfully kept the Packers in Green Bay when the organization had been struggling financially.

Conservatives do not want to repeat past mistakes. James Wigderson, who writes for a free market think tank in Wisconsin called the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, said the era of recall elections in Wisconsin began long before Walker triumphed in a 2012 recall election. The first state official to be successfully recalled was former state Sen. George Petak from Racine in 1996. Petak’s recall happened after he violated a promise to constituents that he would not include Racine in the taxing jurisdiction for the new Milwaukee Brewers baseball stadium. As a result, Wigderson noted, Republicans lost control of the state senate.

“That’s part of the reason why the governor I think is having a hard time getting support for the Bucks arena, because a number of state legislators remember what happened to George Petak and remember what happened to the Republican majority in the Senate at the time,” Wigderson said. “They don’t want that kind of voter anger again.”

Despite the governor’s reassurances that taxpayers will be protected, Wigderson believes Wisconsinites will inevitably see their taxes go up because of the additional borrowing the state will need to do. Wigderson said he thinks the governor’s plan has a 50 percent chance of implementation, but that it could mean Republicans lose grassroots and Tea Party support. Without such support, he noted, it would be difficult for Republicans to maintain their recent gains.

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group supported by the Koch brothers, opposes Walker’s plan fervently. David Fladeboe, the state director of AFP’s Wisconsin chapter, said he was a little surprised when Walker put forward his plans to have the state intervene to support the Bucks.

“We just don’t think it’s a high priority for taxpayer dollars to be going toward this,” Fladeboe said. “We’ve been sold a bill of goods in the past, and it just never seems to work out. … Overall during his governorship, we’ve been very happy with the policies he’s put forward. On almost everything we’ve been right there in support of it.”

Fladeboe indicated that he did not think this was a determinative factor for conservative Walker fans to part ways with the governor, just an unfortunate disagreement instead.

One wrinkle that could anger the conservative base nationwide — Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry is an outspoken donor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Any taxpayer money used by Walker would go to a man who has given his own money away to Clinton. Wigderson said he does not think Lasry’s status as a Clinton donor has impacted Walker’s actions, but that several Republicans in the legislature likely think about it in the back of their minds.

The Bucks have helped produce many legendary careers, including hall of famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson. But they have also produced some notable busts, such as Kent Benson who was drafted first overall in 1977 and has largely been forgotten by basketball fans. If Walker wants to avoid a rerun of that 70’s show, he will need to overcome the stumbling block posed by the Bucks to win the White House.