Sports as a tool to steal from taxpayers
- 00:09:45
- YouTube
Sports as a tool to steal from taxpayers
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Sure. George Steinbrenner is getting over $600 million for the new Yankee Stadium in New York. The New York Mets are getting over $600 million. In fact, the City of New York gave them money to lobby against the taxpayers to get more money. Rudy Giuliani gave $50 million to the two teams for that purpose. The new owners of the Washington Nationals baseball team in Washington, D.C., paid $450 million for the team. But, in fact, they got the team for free, because the subsidy they're getting for the new stadium is worth $611 million. We actually paid these people to buy the team. (...) AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of sports teams, talk about President Bush and where you believe, really, ultimately, he got his wealth. DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, it isn't a function of belief, Amy. I've got the documents. President Bush, who will go down in history as the great tax cutter, owes almost all of his fortune to a tax increase that was funneled into his pocket. (...) The value of this subsidy, according to Ray Hutchison, who is the husband of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, is a prominent Republican insider in Texas and is the leading authority on municipal bond finance in Texas, was $202.5 million. The profit that President Bush and his partners made when they sold the team was $164 million. What does that tell you? Every single penny of additional money President Bush got from that investment, his gain, came from the taxpayers. He did not add one cent to the value of that team through his skill as an MBA manager. This gets repeated all over the country. Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfQDBjVhMzA&feature=PlayList&p=5EF4E9A462353E17&index=0&playnext=1 Book: http://books.google.com/books?id=iuKyGAAACAAJ&dq=david+cay+johnston+free+lunch&ei=QGiSR_L-G4Kw7gKw-dypBw NPR interview: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17808622
YouTube | January 19, 2008
