Obama Doesn't Want Federal Tax Dollars Paying For Any More Sports Stadiums

The Huffington Post reports:

President Barack Obama is trying (again) to take federal taxpayers off the hook for financing new sports stadiums.

In the 2017 budget proposal the White House released Tuesday, Obama proposed repealing a federal tax exemption on the bonds cities and states use to finance new stadiums.

That exemption allows cities and states to pay for stadiums with tax-free bonds that have discounted interest rates, a practice that will cost federal taxpayers nearly $4 billion in tax money on existing stadium debt, according to a 2012 Bloomberg analysis.

Ending that exemption, which the budget would do on bonds issued after the end of 2016, would have a modest fiscal benefit -- it would save roughly $542 million over the next decade, according to the budget proposal.

Economists have also suggested that eliminating the exemption would increase the price of stadiums for cities and states in a way that could, in theory, make them more cost-conscious when they enter into public financing deals. The Treasury Department argues that the repeal could reduce costs for local taxpayers in its explanation of the change, saying that "the current use of tax-exempt governmental bonds to finance sports facilities has shifted more of the costs and risks from the private owners to local residents and taxpayers in general."

Barack Obama's struggle against the rent-seekers.