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The Politicians Never Give Up – Arenas and Smoking Bans

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Now that the University of Louisville basketball team made it to the final four in the NCAA tournament, it seems to be assumed that a new basketball arena will be built for the team.  Louisville’s Mayor Abramson, the University of Louisville, and Kentucky’s Governor Fletcher all have ideas about where to build it.  Notice, they haven’t asked whether it is right to stick the taxpayers with the cost of a new arena; they just assume the taxpayers will be stuck and are squabbling about the details.  If I had known that getting to the final four would be used as justification for taking hundreds of millions of dollars from Kentucky taxpayers, I’m afraid I would have been much less enthusiastic about rooting for the home team! 

The proposed arena may cost about $210,000,000, which is three hundred dollars for every man, woman and child in Jefferson County (or one thousand two hundred dollars for every family of four).  That would buy a lot of bird seed for a lot of cardinals!

While it is somewhat amusing to see the looters fighting among themselves about how to spend our money, each wanting to put the arena in his own favorite place while claiming to have the interest of “the community as a whole” at heart, I wish that, as a taxpayer, I could have some input into this arena process.  I’d really like to have the opportunity to tell the politicians where to stick it. 

Really, I support Jerry’s desire to have an arena downtown and U of L’s desire to have an arena at the fairgrounds.  In fact, I’d like everyone to have everything they want, as long as they are willing to open up their checkbooks and pay for it themselves.  If an arena is as good an investment for the community as Jerry says, then the community businesses that stand to benefit should be thrilled at the opportunity to invest!

While it certainly is time for Louisville taxpayers to get some of our money back from Frankfort after subsidizing people all over the state of Kentucky, I really would prefer to get mine back in cash.  I might spend some of it going to events in an arena, but probably not $1200!  I would much prefer to be able to vote with my checkbook instead of having my money forcibly extracted and then spent by the politicians.  Wouldn’t you?

It is interesting that one of the arguments for a downtown arena is that we are already subsidizing the Fourth Street Live entertainment complex downtown, so now we need to subsidize a downtown arena in order to ensure the success of Fourth Street Live.  In other words, one ripoff of the taxpayers serves as justification for another!  This is typical of the way politicians think.  First they destroy free market, private enterprise to create their own dream worlds, and then they find these worlds cannot support themselves even with subsidies, so they tap us for more.  No doubt the restaurants and bars on Bardstown Road that already have been hurt by the subsidized competition at Fourth Street Live will be especially happy to subsidize their competitors even more!

Of course, the push for outlawing smoking in private businesses continues as well.  Now, the anti-smoking nannies say they will outlaw smoking only in restaurants, not in bars, but they admit that, as soon as they get smoking banned in the restaurants they will go after the bars next.  It is understandable that taxpayers who are too stupid to know how to spend their own money and are willing to let the politicians spend it for them would also be too stupid to know whether or not they want to go into a restaurant or bar that allows smoking.  Business owners also must be too stupid to know what their customers want and must have politicians who have never run a business telling them what to do.  And the politicians find it very easy to make business decisions when their own money is not at stake and they can again tap into the taxpayers’ pockets to straighten out their messes.

It’s a shame the politicians have no respect for us or our property, but it’s understandable when most of us sheepishly allow ourselves to be fleeced and don’t make the politicians pay any price for their plunder. As usual, a lack of respect for the property of taxpayers begets a lack of respect for the property of business owners, which, in turn, begets more lack of respect for other private property and other people.  Even though the price of petroleum is high these days, it might be time for us to consider that some good old-fashioned American tar and feathers would be a good investment!

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