Vote No on the Sin Tax Issue 7
Issue 7 means twenty more years of taxes and broken promises.
20 MORE YEARS OF TAXES:
We built the stadiums but the owners got even MORE.
- Bed Tax- $42,208,096 between 2000-2010
- Car Rental Tax- $30,777,748 between 2000-2010
- Concessions- Receives all the profit from concessions sold at games
- Parking- $117,802,711 between 2000-2010
- Stadium Ads- Receives all profits from ads placed in the Stadiums.
- Naming Rights- Recently sold for $100 million.
TWENTY MORE YEARS OF BROKEN PROMISES:
They Promised More Jobs:
Stadium promoters promised 28,000 jobs would be created in the Gateway district. This never happened. It is estimated that only a third of those the jobs appeared. Does this Keep Cleveland Strong? NO!
They Promised a Stronger Community:
One out of every three Clevelanders now lives in poverty and more than one-quarter of Cuyahoga County mortgages are underwater. Yet Issue 7 would give millionaire franchise owners millions more!!
THERE IS ANOTHER WAY:
The downtown power brokers, politicians and billionaire franchise owners are trying to rush this tax through. We should slow down the process and explore other options.
- The New England Patriots relied on private funding to build their stadium, using public funding for only 17% of their costs.
- The Indianapolis Colts increased taxes in 6 counties outside Indianapolis to help fund the Lucas Oil Stadium.
- The Denver Broncos enacted a multi-county sales tax to help fund the Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium, helping their home town taxpayers.
Those three teams evidently know more than just how to win football games!! (Don’t you wish the Browns did, too?)
Go to the Coalition Against Unfair Taxes to learn more by clicking here!
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.
ReplyDeleteThe 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.