August 12, 2015 2:19PM

Scott Walker Hands $250 Million in Taxpayers’ Money to Billionaire Bucks Owners

By David Boaz

Scott Walker touts his record as a fiscal conservative. But this morning, reports the Associated Press, 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took a break from the presidential campaign trail Wednesday to commit $250 million in taxpayer money to pay for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Walker’s come under a lot of criticism from both left and right for his arena funding plan, including an article I wrote at the Huffington Post after he defended his plan on ABC’s “This Week.” Such deals are paid for by average taxpayers to benefit millionaire players and billionaire owners. But millionaires and billionaires have more influence than average taxpayers, and the pictures around stadium deals are great: 

Calling the new NBA stadium a “dynamic attraction for the entire state of Wisconsin,” Walker signed the bill at the Wisconsin State Fair Park surrounded by state lawmakers, local officials and Bucks team president Peter Feigin.

The economics, not so good. Walker has claimed a “return on investment” of three to one, which he says is “a good deal” for the taxpayers. Economists disagree. As Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys wrote in a 2004 Cato study criticizing the proposed D.C. stadium subsidy, “The wonder is that anyone finds such figures credible.…

Our conclusion, and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city’s economy. The net economic impact of professional sports in Washington, D.C., and the 36 other cities that hosted professional sports teams over nearly 30 years, was a reduction in real per capita income over the entire metropolitan area.

Republican voters are looking for fiscal conservatives and straight talkers. We’re hearing a lot of denunciations of corporate welfare and crony capitalism. And here’s a leading conservative candidate for president sitting down in front of cameras to sign a bill handing $250 million in taxpayers’ money (Bloomberg says $400 million with interest) to wealthy owners of a sports team (some of whom, no doubt coincidentally, are large donors to his campaign), in defiance of free‐​market advocates and virtually all economists. Will the other Republican candidates take him on? Will they denounce this wasteful extravagance?


Or will we have to rely on John Oliver to do the job small‐​government Republicans ought to be doing?