Editorial: E-pulltabs best bet to win stadium OK

An NFL stadium in which a franchise can thrive and a region can take pride comes close to being a basic public amenity in a modern American metropolis. We'd rate it important enough to justify financing with public-purpose state general obligation bonds, serviced by general sales or income taxes.

That funding approach would widely spread the cost of a widely shared resource, minimizing the burden any subset of the population would bear. It would also minimize borrowing costs, since general obligation bonds carry a lower interest rate than the appropriation bonds that are contemplated in the stadium financing plan that Gov. Mark Dayton unveiled on March 1.

A good case can also be made for taxing Vikings fans' purchases of tickets and fan memorabilia. Those purchases wouldn't be made if the Twin Cities cease to be home to an NFL team.

Those tax-based mechanisms are easy for journalists to embrace. We don't stand for election. A majority of state politicians do fear the political consequences of paying for a stadium in any way that can be portrayed as using funds that might have gone to schools, colleges, public safety and social services.

That political reality has led lawmakers to a less-than-ideal funding source for a new stadium -- gambling. The March 1 proposal calls for the addition of electronic games -- pulltabs and bingo -- to the paper-based games that Minnesota charities have been allowed to offer bar and restaurant patrons since 1985.

We wish tax-based funding options had been chosen. Taxes may distort economic activity, but gambling distorts people's lives. It preys on people prone to compulsive behavior, and has disproportionate appeal to those who can least afford it. It conveys the undemocratic message that only losers pay for government. Because it's a voluntary activity, it's also a volatile source of revenue, one that can fall off precipitously when fads change or the economy falters.

That said, electronic charitable games seem the most plausible of the various gambling options that have been suggested in recent months to pay the state's share of stadium costs -- now put at about $60 million a year for 30 years.

The stadium proposal would modernize an activity that has delivered more than $1 billion over the past 27 years to good causes, including youth athletics, scholarships, firefighting equipment, and services for veterans and the elderly.

Allowing those games to be played on hand-held electronic devices is projected to produce a spike in charitable gaming, one that the Dayton administration says stands both to benefit local charities and to pay for a new stadium.

That's particularly so after the administration announced Friday its support for tax changes intended to boost projected charitable proceeds after the introduction of electronic games by $10 million per year, from $53 million to $62.5 million.

Both of the administration's claims about electronic charitable gaming bear close legislative scrutiny. Officials with Allied Charities of Minnesota, charitable gaming's umbrella organization, aren't convinced that the stadium funding proposal is good for charities.

Friday's proposed tax changes don't go far enough to assure the financial viability of their games in the face of stiff competition from Indian casinos, they said. They question the credibility of projections that show many charities more than doubling their proceeds after adding electronic games under the proposed new tax structure.

In recent years, Minnesota legislators have shown an unfortunate propensity for short-term thinking and temporary solutions. That should not be their mind-set about financing one of the state's largest and most visible public building projects.