Of course there's a Vikings stadium bill. Anyone could see, years ago, that everyone was going to get their own stadium eventually, and we'd have as much say in the matter as a goose being prepped for an afterlife as foie gras.

A story on 'CCO had this alarming line about the stadium bill:

"It will not be site-specific."

OK, right out of the gate they're doing this wrong. You need to have a place where the stadium will be. Week in, week out. People will ask where the Vikings are playing this weekend, and they will need an answer so they can plan ahead. Say what you will about the Metrodome, people know where it is. Imagine if it was someplace different every weekend. Now, I can see some advantages to having a stadium that moves around a lot; supposedly it's a great economic boon to have one, so they could tour various distressed areas of the Metro, showering adjacent bars with customers. However the stadium might be moved -- by truck, or a fleet of powerful helicopters -- it would provide jobs. But what if it gets stuck in traffic? Falls off the back of the truck? No, we need a site.

I like the idea of putting it on the graveyard of the Metrodome, because without the Vikes and the Twins, the Dome has no reason to live. Blow it up. But first, fill it with a billion kernels of popcorn, set it on fire and let the roof explode Jiffy Pop-style. Airlift in some butter. Fun for the whole family.

Another quote: "It would be paid for by a menu of options, including a sports-memorabilia tax, a hotel-lodging tax, a rental car tax and continuation of a tax that helped build the Minneapolis Convention Center."

You can see them crunching the numbers: Well, a sports-memorabilia tax only brings in $621 million, and that's including a tax on the sale of Sid Hartman bobbleheads. We need something else. Rental car taxes are sneaky, because people who rent cars don't have an option, and it's not like someone sees the NICE STADIUM FOR THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE, THANKS PAL tax and says, Oh forget that, I'm walking.

By "hotel-lodging tax" they mean more on top of the 2.625 percent we have now. It was 3 percent, but when the sales tax went up, lodging went down, because the law says the total tax bite for sales and lodging can't be more than 13 percent. So if lodging goes up, something will have to come down, possibly the entertainment tax. Or the entertainment tax could be extended to sitting around the house watching the hamster run in his wheel, which is technically entertainment -- if you're 6. But you ask, won't this impact the hamster-wheel sector of the economy? Hey, everything's a trade-off.

At least we're not as bad as New York, which slaps something called an "occupancy tax" on each hotel room. Yes, you're taxed for occupying something whose sole purpose is to be occupied. It's like a sleeping tax or a pillow-drool tax.

No one seems to be talking about slots, which is a pity. Put in some one-armed bandits that look like Brett Favre. But don't pull the arm too hard! He's old.

Seriously, why not? I'd love to see casinos set up with slot machines for every worthy cause. Then again, maybe not; I'd hate to hear people crow that they had a great night -- took a thousand dollars off the Minnesota Orchestra, and skinned the libraries for a hundred.

So, I got it: How about a stadium ticket tax? Pay for the whole thing with a stadium ticket tax. It might boost the cost of a ticket way up there, but at least Vikes fans would have the pleasure of knowing they owned -- in a nonlegal, totally useless way -- a piece of the palace in which they meet.

But no. We have to save that for something down the road.

Like the Timberwolves' new arena, in 2027.

jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858