Bread and circuses II

Business is a slave to profit, but politicians are slaves to politics. Why compete in a free market when, as StarTribune reporter Eric Weiffering says in his excellent analysis of public ownership of pro sports stadiums, businesses can "privatize their gains while socializing losses ("Go long to measure the true cost of a stadium," StarTribune, January 29, 2012). Pro sports teams and their cronies in the government are literally laughing all the way to the bank. In too many public-private "partnerships," the private owners get the profit, the politicians get the photo op, and the taxpayers get a perpetual liability.

No one has summed up the irresistible lure of bread and circuses better than this oft-misquoted yet cogent mash-up:

The release of initiative and enterprise made possible by self-government ultimately generates disintegrating forces from within. Again and again, after freedom brings opportunity and some degree of plenty, the competent become selfish, luxury-loving and complacent; the incompetent and unfortunate grow envious and covetous; and all three groups turn aside from the hard road of freedom to worship the golden calf of economic security. The historical cycle seems to be: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more.^[1]

Today we as a society are somewhere between apathy and dependency. If the cycle of bondage can be prevented from descending from abundance, or brought back to abundance, the 2012 electorate needs to send representatives to the state legislatures, the Congress, and elect a President with the collective will to put aside bread and circuses, and let free enterprise work so the people can put bread back on their own tables.

1. "The Truth about Tytler," by Loren Collins, http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html, January 2009.

Fiscal restraint needed on Hennepin County board

The MPR story, "Hennepin County commissioners give themselves a pay raise," reveals the apparent hubris gone wild on the Hennepin County board. What else could explain how the commission could vote this way given the current economic situation?

St. Paul, Minn. — Hennepin County commissioners voted 5 to 2 yesterday to give themselves a 3.4 percent pay increase in each of the next two years.

Their salaries will top $100,000 in 2010.

The increases match the maximum raises offered to regular county employees for 2008 and 2009, and property taxes are expected to decrease slightly for many Hennepin County homeowners next year.

But the county is also facing a significant budget shortfall, and may have to make hundreds of layoffs in 2009.

Outgoing commissioner Penny Steele, of Rogers, abstained from the vote. She said she didn't want to vote for a pay increase she would not have to answer to voters for. Steele also said it was a bad time for a raise for elected officials.

"You know, obviously, with the kind of pressures on the people that live in Hennepin County, in terms of job losses in terms of their own property taxes still perhaps going up or not being reduced, and yet the valuations are not where they were a few years ago. I mean, there's a lot of pressure on the people that live in this county," Steele said.

Commissioner Linda Koblick, of Wayzata, voted against the pay raise.

Both Steele and Koblick are retiring from the board. They both heroically opposed the confiscatory taxpayer subsidies granted to the Minnesota Twins professional baseball team and its owner, Carl Pohlad, that enabled the new Twins stadium to be built in a brazen example of public debt financing private profit.

In November, the property taxpayers of Hennepin County desperately need to elect two commissioners that will carry on Steele and Koblick's record of service to the taxpayers. Jeff Johnson is running to succeed Penny Steele in District 7, while John Cooney is running to succeed Linda Koblick in District 6. Both candidates are Republican endorsed, and Johnson is running as a self-proclaimed "taxpayer watchdog."

Hennepin County needs commissioner with conservative compass

One of the important local races in 2008 will be to replace the solidly conservative Penny Steele on the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners in District 7. Activists on both sides of the Twins stadium subsidy battle will remember Steele, along with Commissioners Gail Dorfman and Linda Koblick, as tireless defenders of the taxpayer and limited government in the face of tremendous pressure from the subsidy recipients.

With Steele not running for reelection at the end of her term this year, county conservatives will want another commissioner with a steel backbone, so to speak, to protect the taxpayer and stand in the way of runaway government growth, including a taxpayer-financed stadium for the Minnesota Vikings. (If you doubt the urgency of this need, just look at the bottom of the receipt for anything you bought in Hennepin County since the subsidy went into effect.)

Although the board is a nonpartisan one, and party affiliations will not be on the ballot, political parties can endorse. Delegates to the Hennepin County Republican convention on February 23 will choose between two candidates for the endorsement, Jeff Johnson and Warren Limmer. Limmer (R-Maple Grove) is a fifth term state senator; Johnson is a Republican former state representative from Plymouth, who ran for Minnesota Attorney General in 2006.

Gail Dorfman: county core services suffer for Twins stadium

I received this e-mail from Hennepin County Commissioner Gail Dorfman in response to an e-mail I sent to her, thanking her for her vote against Hennepin County's public subsidy to a private business with millionaire employees and billionaire owners, a vote that would not even have been necessary had Minnesota Sen. Terri Bonoff (DFL-Minnetonka) voted against authorizing Hennepin County to levy this $1.1 billion local option sales tax increase in the first place (the exemption passed the Minnesota Senate by one vote).

Thank you for contacting my office last year regarding funding for a new ballpark for the Twins. While I was unable to respond to you immediately due to the volume of emails and letters I was receiving, I very much appreciated hearing from you.

I have consistently opposed public funding of a ballpark. Over the past few years, Hennepin County has faced state and federal budget cuts that challenge our ability to provide many of the core services that fall to county government and are at the heart of our mission to care for our most vulnerable residents. In light of this, it is particularly difficult to justify subsidizing the construction of a ballpark with taxpayer dollars.

There are more important priorities for Hennepin County.

As you know, a majority of my colleagues on the County Board voted in 2006 to move forward with the ballpark, and they were supported by a majority in the State Legislature. So as we begin this new year, we have begun the process to acquire the land and negotiate the development agreement for a new Twins stadium in Minneapolis. On January 1st, the sales tax to fund the stadium took effect.

I have been appointed by my colleagues to serve on the Ballpark Implementation Committee, which has some oversight over design of the stadium and surrounding area and will make recommendations to the County Board and Minneapolis City Council. I accepted this appointment even though I remain opposed to the funding mechanism. As a member of this committee, I will at least have some say in making sure that public dollars are spent in a manner that benefits the community to the greatest extent possible.

Again, I appreciated hearing from you during the difficult debates over stadium funding. Please feel free to contact me on this or other issues over the coming months. Best wishes for the New Year.

Gail Dorfman
Hennepin County Commissioner