- AMERICAN.COM
(Sorry about the Game of Thrones trope up in that headline; I’ve begun reading the novels and I just can’t help myself.)
ANYWAY, in between scuttling from office to office amid the freezing cold downtown, there’s lots of talk among county leadership about extending the so-called sin tax for another 20 years. That’s a tax on cigarettes and booze, which has been on the books since 1990. It was originally instituted to pay for the things we used to call Cleveland Browns Stadium, the Gund Arena and Jacobs Field. That totaled $240.5 million. The proposed extension would cover as-yet-unnamed structural improvements to those joints. That comes in closer to $325 million, as journalist Roldo Bartimole points out.
(Question: If $240.5 million more or less funds three whole stadiums back in the 90s, what in the world will $325 million (factoring in inflation, etc.) bring this town?)
Quick, here are a couple of clutch lines from the PD’s Mark Naymik in his best column of the year thus far:
The teams are not sharing the information just yet.
This is disgraceful when you consider that the teams and corporate leaders are asking taxpayers to cover these yet-to-be defined costs. This is like a mechanic asking you to agree to pay for car repairs and improvements before you receive an estimate.
Even more outrageous, the Cuyahoga County Council didn’t demand an estimate before recently drafting ballot language asking voters to renew the countywide taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, which are set to expire at the end of July in 2015.
He’s spot-on with those points.
Cuyahoga County Council may decide by February to place the sin tax extension language on the May ballot. (All of which comes after the city of Cleveland already inked a $30-million deal with the Browns.)
Note that these are all publicly owned sports stadiums boasting teams helmed by personified arrogance capable of producing little more than bad jokes and life-scarring depression. We’re coming up on 50 years since a daggone championship in this town; that predates the term “Super Bowl.” But perhaps tax-paying residents shouldn’t be worrying about wins or successes or general joy emanating from the field/court. Perhaps the essence of Cleveland’s Way of Doing Things boils down to a complacent smile, a friendly nod to the fact that, hey, we’ve got Powerful People here in town. They’ll bring economic development back to Cleveland! The main idea here, as evidenced by Mayor Frank Jackson, et al., is to bend over and ask them for more of the same.
The sin tax is just an odd idea, particularly in the realm of sports (by their nature enjoyed by all strata of people and fans of all geographic ilk). It’s an Old Guard idea passed down from another time, meant to subsidize the entertainment of the masses on the backs of (often enough) the county’s poorest residents.
Relatedly, Bartimole runs the numbers on what county taxpayers have been paying beyond the sin tax. The sheer number of zeroes – dredged right from the people’s coffers – is mind-numbing.
Note that there is a general argument running around town (a very Cleveland argument, mind you), that we’ve gotten ourselves into this situation, and, well, the way out is in, as they say. There aren’t a hell of a lot of open pastures in local governments’ budget books. But until the residents can analyze the projected “improvements” needed at the three stadiums, it’s unwise to heap the bill onto them.
A County Council ordinance to approve this measure for the ballot is due Feb. 5. Expect paltry discussion on the matter as January rolls onward. …Except in the Scene comments section, that is! Drop your suggestions for Cleveland sports economics down below.
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2014.
If it’s on the ballot, I will not be voting for it! Enough is enough. People who don’t even watch sports or attend games are paying for them. Let the owner’s pay for this crap.
Just say NO. As a few voices warned years ago; the sin is how it would become an open checkbook under the charade that local pro teams would trail its brethren nationwide without the availability of an alternate faucet of cash. Tack on a “user’s fee” for tickets, ticket plans, parking in “official” team lots and gear purchased through team shops.
The town is dying anyway let it go. No more support for the few rich. I can not afford to attend a game so why support them.
The cavs..Indians…browns are a joke …turn all three stadiums into casinos SO CITY CAN MAKE BIG MONEY….Team owners and players should pay for upgrades …..they make all the big money
the Browns are soooooo worth it!!! i mean, think about all the joy and happiness they have brought us on sundays, and all the championships baby! add in all the titles from the Indians and Cavs, and we’re rolling in championships! woo hoo, take my money please!
yeah no
Once they have it you’ll never get it back. The Ohio turnpike comes to mind.
VOTE HELL NO!
My favorite part is that a large part of the tax comes from tobacco and you can’t smoke in these facilities. I under stand using tax revenue to erect the stadiums, but using tax revenue to make improvements to a relatively new facility (factory of sadness) boggles my mind. The team owners take in millions on our heartbreak but can’t shell out the cash to “improve” the facility. I want to put a pool in my backyard, can I get my neighbors to pay for it? Should they pay for something that brings them little or no happiness, I could invite them over for a swim and charge them $100 for a towel.
The joke is that it is an organization such as The Greater Cleveland Partnership that supports this tax, the organization that does nothing but brag about its great efforts to bring jobs to the area. The PD just reported how jobs decreased by 8,100 in the past year, the worst loss in the country! They obviously know what they (and all the other marketing-hyped NEO economic development organizations) are doing!
Ned Stark dies at the end of first book. Tyrion ends up killing his father and travelling to join Daneryes in Essos. Serves ya right.
This issue is the absurdity of absurdities. Let me get this straight: the
purpose of the Sin Tax is to gouge those who purchase alcohol and cigarettes
not because anyone is trying to discourage consumption but rather so the
County can use that money to pay for sports stadiums that do not produce
anything but a fleeting moment witnessing the passing of a football, the
dribbling of a basketball and the throwing of a baseball so that such a minute
tidbit of diversion can be enjoyed by all. The stupidity of this proposition is
enough to make your head spin even though the spin doctors advocating
passage of this nonsense are already doing a pretty good job of hypnotizing
the voters to actually consider supporting it. At least the Robber Barons
of the previous centuries provided something tangible such as oil, steel,
railroads etcetera. These team owners do not even provide one tangible thing
that could ever be considered with the term “value added.” Almost everyone
discusses this “enterprise” as though it is the same thing as industry {which
it is not}. The price of admission is essentially a voluntary tax paid by those
who can afford it to pay those who don’t need it. If this isn’t a transfer of
wealth I don’t know what is.
The real outrage here is the fact that taxes on alcohol and cigarettes will
not be used to aid in the reduction of addiction {hence the reference to “sin”}
but rather to stuff the pockets of all three teams who could easily afford to
pay for the repairs themselves. The vote was rammed through the last time
{under somewhat suspicious circumstances} and hear we go again. But this
time…not so fast!!! We the voters of Cuyahoga County are going to fight the
proponents on this one and we don’t care if the teams up and go somewhere
else {please see my views on entertainment below} because quite frankly there
are simply more important things than sports and the unearned money that
comes with it. Those in public office who are too stupid and lazy to find other
ways to grow a major American city need to resign and leave their self-seeking
political ambitions on the scrapheap of history. Don’t ever let it be said that
this was time when the tide ran out on Cuyahoga County but rather was the
time when the voters rose up to welcome the rising tide of change and rebuked
this pathetic paradigm our previous elected leaders embraced.
Let the battle be joined.
And now to the real underlying issue at hand:
One of the most disturbing facts about our capitalist nation is the
misappropriation of funds directed to the salaries of entertainers.
Everyone should agree that the value an athlete, movie star, talk-show host,
team-owner, etcetera brings to the average citizen is very small. Granted,
they do offer a minuscule of diversion from our daily trials and
tribulations as did the jesters in the king’s court during the middle ages.
But to allow these entertainers to horde such great amounts of wealth at the
expense of more benevolent societal programs is unacceptable.
They do not provide a product or a service so why are they rewarded as such?
Our society is also subjected to the “profound wisdom” of these people
because it equates wealth with influence. Perhaps a solution to this
problem and a alternative to defeated school levies, crumbling
infrastructures, as well as all the programs established to help feed,
clothe and shelter those who cannot help themselves would be to tax this
undeserved wealth. Entertainers could keep 1% of the gross earnings reaped
from their endeavor and 99% could be deposited into the public coffers.
The old ideas of the redistribution of wealth have failed, and it is time to
adapt to modern-day preferences. People put their money into entertainment
above everything else; isn’t it time to tap that wealth? Does anyone think
this will reduce the quality of entertainment? It seems to me that when
entertainers received less income, the quality was much higher.