Columnist: Eliminate Sports Welfare

Next time you have a long time and want to get angry over how many tax dollars go toward private sports teams and stadiums, read Patrick Hruby's piece, "let's eliminate sports welfare":

Perhaps you’ve heard the news: America is barreling toward a self-induced “fiscal cliff” of federal tax hikes and spending cuts, largely because Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on how to make the nation’s budget moderately less unbalanced. On one side, President Obama wants to raise money by increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans; on the other, House Speaker John Boehner wants to reduce costs by slashing social welfare programs. Both men and their respective parties seem stuck at an ideological impasse -- think who’s better, Barry Sanders or Emmitt Smith? only with the world economy at stake -- and yet each camp is ignoring an obvious way out.
Well, maybe not a way out. But definitely a way forward. An easy, overdue fix to the nation’s fiscal woes. A course of action rock-ribbed liberals and hardcore conservatives can agree on. A policy shift that would not only save cash, but also act as a trust-building, goodwill-generating building block toward larger, harder and more essential partisan compromise.
Ready? Here goes.

Eliminate Sports Welfare.

Read more here.