Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to send a quarter-billion dollars in taxpayer money to the billionaire owners of the Milwaukee Bucks, who are threatening to leave if they don’t get a subsidized new arena.
At the same time, however, presidential candidate Scott Walker wants to convince Republican primary voters nationwide that he is a conservative who can stand up to the special interests.
It’s a tough sell.
Walker, together with local Democratic politicians and the billionaire out-of-state owners of the Bucks, has negotiated a deal whereby the state and local governments pay for half the cost of a new $500 million arena for the NBA team. The state would borrow $55 million to build the arena, costing the state taxpayers $80 million over 20 years when interest is included. City and county governments would cover the rest.
The Bucks’ current arena is 27 years old, and the NBA has threatened to buy the team from the current owners and move it to a new city if Walker and his friends don’t pony up.
Walker argues that the $250 million gift to the owners — billionaire hedge fund managers Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens, who live in New York — will pay for itself. “The price of doing nothing is not zero. It’s $419 million,” Walker said. “It’s not just a good deal. It’s a really bad deal if we don’t do anything.”
In short, Walker is asserting that the team and the new arena will bring in more tax revenue than the ransom money will cost taxpayers.
We can study that claim later, but first, let’s address the political cost to Walker.
The subsidy undermines Walker’s ability — especially in the general election for president — to tout his record as governor. Walker explains his cuts to government employee benefits and University of Wisconsin spending in terms of necessity — state spending was in disarray, and he had to make tough choices.
But if he’s handing $250 million to the Bucks’ owners, the spending cuts look different. It’s an easy — and not entirely unfair — line of attack for a Democrat: Walker cut $300 million from college kids, so he could give most of it to some millionaire business owners.
No doubt Walker’s subsidy to the Bucks will hurt him politically outside of Milwaukee.
The next question is: Should it?
If you are a fair-minded, thoughtful voter — in the GOP primary or the election — what does Walker’s corporate-welfare deal tell you about the man, about how he would be as president?
First, it shows that Walker’s conservatism — his belief in free enterprise and limited government — is more a disposition, a leaning, than a deeply held principle. He’s against government getting involved unless someone can make a good argument that in this case, it’s good for business. We’ve already learned this lesson, though, from Walker’s support for ethanol when he traveled to Iowa earlier this year.
Second, there’s the toughness question. Walker was supposed to be tough and unbending in the face of special interests—that’s how he beat the powerful government unions and the recall election. But when a league run by billionaires demands ransom of Walker, he forks it over just like your average mayor or governor would.
Third, Walker’s defense of the subsidy shows that he’s not a student of economics. It’s nearly unanimous among economists that stadium subsidies do not pay for themselves, and the research suggests that losing a sports team doesn’t hurt a city’s economy.
“Our conclusion,” write economists Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys, “and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city’s economy.”
David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, collected this and similar quotations in a recent article on Walker.
For instance, economist Ray Keating wrote: “The lone beneficiaries of sports subsidies are team owners and players.”
One reason is the substitution effect: Milwaukeeans who have a basketball team will spend less money on other types of leisure. The money spent in and around the fancy new arena wouldn’t have just sat under mattresses.
Opponents will call Walker’s arena subsidy crony capitalism. But a simpler — and probably truer — explanation is available.
Walker cares more about the Bucks than he does about limited government.
Set aside the bad math of Walker’s spouting and think about what kind of guys he is: a regular Midwestern dad who thinks that sports, beers and brats downtown on a Wednesday night is something worth spending money on.
That’s a tenable position, and even laudable in a sense. It reinforces Walker’s likability as a person. But it could undermine his desirability as a candidate or a president.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Sunday and Wednesday on washingtonexaminer.com.
