One of the many lessons of the pandemic is that government spending is 1) vital in an economic crisis and 2) likely to be exploited during an economic crisis where nobody is paying too close attention to where the money is going. It’s going to take years, probably, to figure out who all the people are who made off with PPP funds thanks less to need than to being in the right place at the right time; hopefully at least now that the immediate crisis is past, everyone can take their time and do more solid vetting of how tax money is being thrown around.
Or, you know, not:
U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine stepped up to the plate on Thursday through the introduction of the Minor League Baseball Relief Act to help Virginia’s nine Minor League Baseball (MiLB) teams struggling financially after the pandemic threw a curveball into their 2020 season…
According to officials, the Minor League Baseball Relief Act would provide up to $550 million in federal relief funding for MiLB teams, which serve as important economic engines for communities since baseball fans attend games and end up patronizing local restaurants, hotels, and other attractions.
Let’s back up a bit. Minor league baseball consists of 120 teams — down from more than 160 as a result of the minors’ MLB-forced contraction last winter — that in a normal year turn about a 10% profit on $800 million or so in gross revenues. Last year and this weren’t normal years, obviously, and minor-league team owners have been forced to cover a lot of bills without their normal ticket revenue. While MLB teams typically pay minor-league player salaries, minor-league owners have to pay for things like salaries of their own ballpark employees and stadium leases — when they can’t convince local governments to cut their rent, anyway.
This is the case for pretty much all businesses that were involved in selling things during the pandemic — unless you’re Amazon, obviously — which is why there were so many different federal bailout programs over the past year. But most businesses don’t have owners who can phone the local U.S. senators and request legislation on their behalf; given that a fair number of minor-league teams are owned by their major-league affiliates, I’m sure plenty of those people have Warner and Kaine on speed dial. (Minor-league teams owned by major-league teams aren’t eligible for the bailout money, but that doesn’t mean those owners aren’t willing to share their address books.)
The bigger question, meanwhile, is what the point is of giving $550 million to minor-league team owners now, after things are beginning to return to normal, in the ticket-sales sense, at least. It’s not to ensure that teams don’t go out of business: If a team has survived to this point, it has only black ink to look forward to going ahead. And it’s not to prevent teams from laying off employees, either, because they need them now that they have tickets, and hot dogs, to sell. The minor-league owners’ site to promote the bill touts how money is needed by “local hotels, gas stations, restaurants, and bars” that thrive during baseball season, but 1) the substitution effect shows that people will still eat somewhere even if they’re not going to baseball games, so one restaurant’s gain is another’s loss, and 2) it’s baseball season again now, so it’s not at all clear how exactly giving cash to minor-league teams would help local bars.
The bill itself declares itself to be “a grant program for shuttered minor league baseball clubs,” where “shuttered” is defined as having seen gross revenues fall by at least 75% in 2020. Team owners could use the grants to pay for pretty much any business expenses they want — they’d be prohibited from spending it for things like buying real estate or contributing to political parties, but there would be nothing stopping them from, say, using the government cash to pay their stadium rent and then using the money they saved out of their own pocket and giving that to a political campaign. Say, for a U.S. senator from Virginia’s reelection. That would probably be too obvious a kickback — but then, “Our profits running baseball teams went way down even after forcing players to pay for their own hotels and meals, how about U.S. taxpayers give us $550 million with no strings attached to make us whole?” doesn’t appear to be too blatant, so who knows what is out of bounds these days.
You can follow the progress of the bill, currently assigned in the House to the Ways and Means and Small Business committees, here; and you can write to your Congressional representatives, if you so choose, here and here.
No I would say that when big brother mandates cripple the normal economy then they just print more peices of paper with some nebulous promise to pay on them then I guess they should do so for what they’ve created themselves. But let’s be clear this is a benefit to them mostly, they now control, like dealers junkies, a vast amount of the economy, soviet/nazi/chicom etc etc style. Nothing more. Marxism, by it’s various names, isn’t going to benefit anyone other than the chosen ones based on various factors but mostly the most flush greasy squeeky wheels but also on the belief system that they’ve invented via rabbits that they have a right to rule animal farm style.
Jeff, stick to decaf – ‘bro
I am failing to remember any rabbits in Animal Farm.
Watership Down?
I’ll need to re-read it with an eye toward General Woundwort’s position on deficit spending.
Take your +1 & get the Efrafa out of here
This should be a warning to all you young folks out there. Never, ever follow a rabbit down a rabbit hole. No matter what Alice tells you.
Shows you what Richie Neal (House M and W Chair) will propose to allocate for a budget. Last year, he had an UBI bill in his desk that would have given economic relief to, you know, ordinary Americans. Never brought it up for a committee hearing. This, because it involves rich dudes, will likely get a hearing.
Exactly, Thomas.
It’s only “welfare” if it is for poor or lower middle class people. There’s never any real question whether congress will vote to hand over hundreds of millions (or billions) to the already wealthy. But a couple of billion for school lunches in inner cities? Not a chance…
This will get a hearing, but it is likely to be a short one because there’s no need to discuss it. They all know they will vote for it. Their re-election campaign kitties demand it.
Hmmmn. 120 MiLB teams, $550m.
Meanwhile the nation’s government dawdled over $1400 in additional ‘stimulus’ checks for millions of Americans in real financial trouble through no fault of their own.
How, exactly, are minor league baseball teams more important than people?
If they are that important, why did 40+ of them get axed just last year?
I am confused.
Maybe MLB will announce contracting 30 major league teams. They could be persuaded to re-open them for a trillion dollars or so. With money that wouldn’t exist without MLB…
Now THAT is thinking! Manfred and co probably already in an emergency meeting….
Cause if there’s a guy who is bleeding cash and needs help in the worst way, it’s Robert Nutting.