The Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Assembly voted to give millions of dollars taxpayer money from ordinary Wisconsinites the owners of professional basketball’s Milwaukee Bucks in order for them to build a new arena by a 52-34 vote, with 5 members not voting at all, 4 members casting paired votes in favor, and 4 members casting paired votes in opposition.
Here’s the Wisconsin State Assembly members who voted for the Milwaukee Bucks corporate welfare giveaway:
- Scott Allen (R)
- Joan Ballweg (R)
- Peter Barca (D Minority Leader)
- Mandela Barnes (D)
- Janel Brandtjen (R)
- Robert Brooks (R)
- Bob Gannon (R)
- Evan Goyke (D)
- Gordon Hintz (D)
- Rob Hutton (R)
- John Jagler (R)
- Adam Jarchow (R)
- La Tonya Johnson (D)
- Andy Jorgensen (D)
- Robb Kahl (D)
- Terry Katsma (R)
- Samantha Kerkman (R)
- Frederick Kessler (D)
- Joel Kleefisch (R)
- Dan Knodl (R)
- Dale Kooyenga (R)
- Jesse Kremer (R)
- Mike Kuglitsch (R)
- Tom Larson (R)
- Amy Loudenbeck (R)
- Cory Mason (D)
- Jeffrey Mursau (R)
- John Murtha (R)
- John Nygren (R)
- Alvin Ott (R)
- Jim Ott (R)
- Kevin David Petersen (R)
- Warren Petryk (R)
- Jessie Rodriguez (R)
- Dana Rohrkaste (R)
- Joe Sanfelippo (R)
- Michael Schraa (R)
- Christine Sinicki (D)
- Ed Skowronski (R)
- John Spiros (R)
- Mark Spreitzer (D)
- Jim Steineke (R)
- Lisa Subeck (D)
- Rob Swearingen (R)
- Paul Tittl (R)
- Tyler Vorpagel (R)
- Robin Vos (R Speaker)
- Dana Wachs (D)
- Leon Young (D)
- JoCasta Zamarippa (D)
- Josh Zepnick (D)
In addition to those, Mark Born (R), Dianne Hesselbein (D), Bob Kulp (R), and Tom Weatherston (R) cast paired votes in favor of the Milwaukee Bucks corporate welfare deal. However, under Wisconsin Assembly rules, paired votes, which can only be recorded if members casting the paired votes have an excused absence, do not officially count as votes in favor or in opposition to legislation, but are officially recorded as paired votes in the official vote tally. Personally, I think the paired votes rule should be repealed in any jurisdiction that allows paired votes, since it seems like a relic of the pre-automobile era, when it was very difficult for a state legislator who lived a long distance from the capital city of a particular state to get to the state capitol building.
This deal is a terrible deal for Wisconsin taxpayers from every corner of Wisconsin, and it would have been cheaper for the State of Wisconsin to let the Milwaukee Bucks leave for another state than to keep the team by way of corporate welfare for a new arena.
While proponents of the deal have claimed that the deal will pay for itself over time, the fact of the matter is that the deal would certainly not pay for itself. Over a 20-year period, the State of Wisconsin will pay $3.5 million annually to the Bucks, which will play 41 games per year (not counting any preseason or postseason games) in the new arena, starting with the 2017-2018 NBA season. It would require the Bucks to have an average home game attendance of 170,732 or greater to make up for the money that the state gave the Bucks owners to build the arena through the 50¢ cut of a $2/ticket surtax that the state receives. Since the maximum spectator capacity of the arena is going to be roughly somewhere between one-tenth and one-eighth of the break-even attendance figure of 170,732, it’s absolutely unrealistic to expect the state portion of deal to pay for itself over time.
By the way, here’s how I calculated the 170,732 figure for determining break-even attendance for the state portion of the deal:
- State portion of expenditures to the Bucks is $3,500,000/year
- There are 41 home regular season games for each of the 30 NBA teams, including the Bucks
- The portion of the Bucks ticket surtax that the state receives is 50¢/ticket
- 3,500,000/41/0.5=170,732, rounded up to nearest whole number
In fact, if one were to factor in every revenue and expenditure factor of the deal, such as any tax revenue created or saved by the Bucks deal and the costs that taxpayers in Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee are on the hook for, the break-even attendance figure for the entire Bucks deal would probably still be more than any reasonable estimate of the maximum spectator capacity of the new arena. This is for two reasons. First, the portion of the money going to the Bucks owners that Milwaukee County and City of Milwaukee taxpayers are going to be on the hook for is in the low nine-figures. Second, there isn’t a ton of tax revenue that will be created or saved by the deal due to a large number of tax exemptions associated with the deal. To put all of that another way, the deal isn’t going to pay for itself. Even if the state portion of the deal repays itself and them some, it would still short Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee a large amount of taxpayer money that could have been better used for local government services that serve a public purpose and that Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee are legally responsible for.
The Progressive Midwesterner 