Would-be stadium spenders build their house upon sand

If architects built stadiums with the kind of slipshod reasoning and rickety blueprints that politicians employ to finance them, sports arenas would collapse before the first fans entered.

For the latest display of shaky foundations supporting the case to spend public money for private gain, witness the feeble arguments for a new Vikings stadium made by Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Council President Barbara Johnson ("The best plan for Vikings, at the fairest cost," Feb. 14).

They assure the public that the Minneapolis financial plan "requires no new stadium or local taxes."

Really? What's the difference between old money and new money when the topic is a claim on the public purse? Money is money. Dollars diverted from existing revenue streams to further enrich Zygi Wilf and his players is money that could be spent on public purposes -- from filling potholes to rebuilding tumbledown schools.

Want to "create" thousands of construction jobs? Minneapolis is awash in long-postponed capital projects. Let's set to work on those.

Indeed, politicians should ask this question with any spending plans: What offers the greatest return on a public investment?

The answer to that is clear and, at least among economists, uncontroversial. To expand educational opportunities to children, before they enter kindergarten, yields public gains on many fronts. To name only two:

Prison populations then won't continue to swell with the ranks of undereducated, hopeless young adults.

Where are proposals by Rybak and Johnson to steer public money -- "old" or "new" -- to pilot programs now springing up to give the disadvantaged a hand up in a troubled economy? They apparently prefer to promote entertainment.

Detroit now bristles with casinos and has its share of gleaming stadiums. Three out of four high school kids in that city don't graduate on time, if at all. Is that the model for Minnesota? "A shining -- no, sinking -- city on a hill"?

Thousands of jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars and kazillions of "intangible" benefits come with a new Vikings stadium, we're told. Minnesota residents have waited 30 years for the blocks around the Metrodome to blossom. The neighborhood remains as empty as the promises.

Put to the test local business leaders trumpeting the economic development windfall of a new stadium. Let them pay for it. How about a new business tax to build that sterling monument to economic progress?

Want to measure public excitement? Put any or all stadium plans up for a referendum. How odd that Rybak, Johnson and other Vikings backers are eager to avoid a referendum required by the city charter. Can't imagine why.

The can't-live-without-the-Vikings case is a shopworn claim that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The money spent in the stands on a Vikings Sunday would be spent on leisure, anyway. Owners of movie theaters, bowling alleys, paintball tourneys and other recreational venues would welcome that shift in amusement spending.

Perhaps the greatest sophistry of all in the push to "keep" the Vikings in Minnesota is the implausible argument that they've got anywhere else to go.

Remember when the Minnesota Twins were going to flee to North Carolina to play in a wobbly wooden stadium until a big-league sports palace was built? Didn't happen. Never was going to happen.

Now we're told, watch out, the Vikings will move to Los Angeles. Never mind the same story is being told by the owners of NFL teams in St. Louis, San Diego, Oakland and Jacksonville. They are using the identical rumor to spur politicians to shill on their behalf.

He added that the league is in no hurry to act, however. Of course not. Why release hostages when Minneapolis and other cities are scrambling to avoid team moves? Quaking at the prospect of "losing" a team, elected officials are quick to make losers of their taxpayers.

The Vikings are going nowhere. Let's hope we can say the same for the plans of politicians all too eager to help the rich at the expense of everyone else.

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