Watching the legislative session from the sidelines, instead of being in the trenches, is an interesting experience. It’s certainly been fun to watch the fecklessness, especially with regards to the stadium issue, which reached a new low yesterday when the super-secret GOP plan to pay for the stadium with general obligation, a.k.a. taxpayer bonds, was put forward. A plan that seemed to have the support of, well, a few people within the caucus I guess. Good enough for this legislature!
One thing that this episode has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt (and which is deserving of its own blog post) is that the “leaders” of the majority in both the house and senate are anything but. Instead, in both bodies there are several Republicans who are jockeying for position and trying to wield influence. Never have I seen a speaker be completely mum on such a high-profile bill, with an “Aww, shucks, who knows what I think of this bill?” attitude. Speaker Sviggum supported the Twins stadium bill, concealed carry, etc. Speaker Kelliher supported the gas tax increase. This session will be defined in part by any Vikings stadium legislation passed. You can’t punt on this bill (no pun intended).
Even with the weak leadership, it’s hard to see how this proposal came forward. The one constant about a Vikings stadium is that the public does not want to see taxpayer money spent on it. A rather delicious quote from Tony Cornish sums it up (and shows a bit of insanity in our public discourse): “My constituents are saying pass this thing, and do whatever it takes, short of having it come out of our pockets.” “We want something but we don’t want to pay for it” does sum up the attitude of lots of people in this debate, and this proposal makes everybody pay for it. Not a winner.
So as long as we are tossing out random stadium plans, how about mine? The biggest trouble with the current plan is that nobody believes that electronic pull-tab revenue will pay for the state’s share. I don’t buy it either. And while I don’t like using gambling revenue at all, it seems that’s where people have gravitated (and that’s called compromise!). So let’s keep that, but also require the Vikings to backstop revenue shortfalls and cost overruns.
But wait! The Vikings will never agree to that! What if, though, that the Vikings can get a very low- or no-interest loan from the state to cover those cost overruns. The loan would come due after 30 years, or whenever the Vikings were sold to new owners. The sale clause could even include the greater value of a percentage of the capital gain, or the money borrowed from the state, whichever is greater. That way, the state would capture part of the increase in value from a stadium.
And if that’s not good enough, cap the Viking’s backstop and say that cost overruns over that amount (make it high, so that it is very unlikely to come to this) would be paid by some other random sales tax. Memorabilia, luxury boxes, I don’t care. Important thing is that it caps the Viking’s share, even though that share would be a loan.
Of course, one objection to this would be that by loaning the Vikings the money, state taxpayers would be on the hook. Perhaps. I’m not sure how you could finagle it with other bonds and so forth. However, the chances that the Vikings would declare bankruptcy and be unable to pay the money back would be relatively low. It would be much more likely that they would be sold to new owners, which would repay that loan in one fell swoop.
Is my idea crazy? Maybe. But compared to using bonds for a stadium, it’s the Principia of stadium plans.