by Jack Stapleton, Jr.
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by Jack Stapleton, Jr.
Should the taxpayers of Missouri pay the greatest portion of the cost of a proposed new Cardinal ballpark?
The cost of a new major league baseball stadium for the Cardinals does not appear to be the most expensive of several similar stadium proposals elsewhere. But we are talking one-third of a billion dollars that would become the liability of the state’s 5.7 million residents. This liability will be at least 20 years in duration. It will have to be added to the state’s other building programs, including the one enacted a decade ago in order that St. Louis could reach its goal of locating a professional football team in its wilting, virtually comatose downtown area.
Funding professional sports arenas for St. Louis is not the function of state government. State government is responsible for a multitude of capital obligations ranging from new or refurbished university classrooms and dormitories, new correctional facilities, new mental hospitals and scores and scores of construction needs of many of the state’s 16 departments. There is also the essential funding for deplorable highways in the state, which hosts one of the largest systems in the nation and which has for several years faced a bare-bones trough of cash to meet a growing emergency.
There are plenty of good reasons stadium proponents haven’t mentioned these priorities. If and when they are ever confronted, they will serve to deplete the state treasury of millions and millions of dollars that are already committed — and which must be paid from funds siphoned from the state’s existing revenue sources.
Bond issue revenue doesn’t just appear because a funding plan has been approved. The millions of dollars diverted for new construction, when added to the millions and millions of dollars required just to pay the interest on state bonds come primarily from the state’s general revenue fund, which thanks to a healthy economy in recent years is approaching $9 billion.
This money is not intended to build what baseball owners want to build to enhance their personal worth in a sports franchise, the money is principally designed to carry out important, essential functions by the state for its citizens: public schools, colleges and universities, health programs, mental health services and hospitals, welfare assistance, corrections facilities, law enforcement, industrial development, elections, unemployment insurance and even some money for road and highways. And more.
Many high-rolling promoters point to various tax levies that exists as being potential sources of income. Yet only 22 percent of Missouri’s general revenue funding come from sales and use taxes, while only six percent of this vital fund comes from corporate income taxes. The greatest source is the individual income tax, which means that owners of a baseball club want you to give up a portion of your income to help them earn a greater investment on their money. And they don’t really care whether you pay them from your kids’ college fund or from your savings for a health emergency. They just want you to show them your money.
Missourians have absolutely no responsibility to help restore a city that has been mindlessly allowed to deteriorate, virtually bereft of local support and investment. We have already given to the last scheme to accomplish revitalization and it didn’t work. This one gives no evidence of improvement.
[Missouri News & Editorial Service, Inc. Copyright (C) 2001 MNES Corp.]