Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg better hope his fellow Democrats don’t look at his crony capitalist track record in office.
The multi-billionaire will likely seek the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, and he offers a stark contrast from the Bernie Sanders wing of the party which misguidedly argues that billionaires should not exist. In contrast, Bloomberg’s view on the wealthiest Americans is no good either: help the rich get richer at the expense of taxpayers with lavish corporate welfare for sports stadiums.
In his three terms as mayor, Bloomberg used billions of dollars in taxpayer funding to help build professional sports stadiums — and wishes he spent even more than he did.
In 2002, when Bloomberg first came into office, he scrapped former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s plans for taxpayer-funded stadiums for the New York Yankees and New York Mets. Sadly, Bloomberg flip-flopped on the stadium issue as his tenure progressed.
First, Bloomberg worked out deals with the New York Yankees and New York Mets to build the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. The new Yankees venue, owned by the city of New York, received nearly $1.2 billion in public subsidies (there wasn’t even a naming rights deal) while the Mets venue received $615 million.
Later in his tenure, he worked out a deal with the New Jersey Nets to build Barclays Center so the team would move to Brooklyn. It received about $1 billion in public subsidies. The Nets deal was controversial because, as Reason points out, it was a piece of a 22-acre urban renewal project which used eminent domain to kick people out of their homes and businesses. It also allowed Russian plutocrat Mikhail Prokhorov, who owned the team from 2010 to 2014, to sell the Nets for a $1.6 billion profit.
Bloomberg also wanted a city-owned venue for the New York Jets in New York City. The proposal, known as West Side Stadium, lacked adequate support from the city council, so it did not happen. Rather, the Jets and New York Giants pooled together $1.6 billion of their own money and built themselves a new stadium in New Jersey — indicating they could afford to build their own venue in the first place.
It’s not as if giving taxpayer money to build these venues is a worthwhile investment for the city of New York either. Many articles and studies debunk that notion. Stadiums can leave cities in massive debt and the overwhelming majority of the jobs they create are part-time and low wage positions.
Bloomberg’s biggest obstacle between him and the Democratic nomination will likely be his track record as mayor (though his history of sexism doesn’t help either). As mayor, Bloomberg was an authoritarian control freak who used taxpayer money to help out his fellow billionaires. Meanwhile, he raised property taxes by 18.5%, hurting small business owners and homeowners alike. Bloomberg is not what American needs.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published with USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
