Bernie Sanders Fires Back Against Bears Potential Move to Indiana

Let’s look at this bill that Bernie Sanders has, and Mike Braun’s ridiculous response to it. And again, I hate ever being on the side of Bernie Sanders. I hate it. I felt so gross when I read the articles about this. I was thinking, you know, I don’t necessarily disagree with him on this. So I said, okay, I’ve got to ask somebody who is a very level-headed person and who is a Republican if I’m going to get by you guys for this, or if Bernie Sanders may actually be right. I had a long conversation with this person—a very respected member of Indiana government, Republican, conservative. And he said, no. He said you’re not wrong about this. He said what Sanders is proposing, based on how these sports teams have taken advantage of communities, is not out of bounds whatsoever. And I said, oh good, thank goodness. I feel so much better. So if you’re mad at me for my take and for agreeing with Bernie Sanders, it’s someone else’s fault because he told me I was fine. All right, let’s get to it. The Indy Star and many other publications covered this. Really the Indiana publications were covering it because of Braun’s ridiculous response. But let me tell you about the bill first, and then we’ll get to what Braun had to say. Bernie Sanders has proposed a federal piece of legislation. He teamed up with a guy named Greg Casar, a Democrat member of the House of Representatives, to put forth what is called the Home Team Act. This would require professional sports teams—the person who owns a professional sports team—to first give one year notice before moving their team to a new state or metropolitan area. During that one-year period, any interested parties within that community—private individuals, nonprofits, or community ownership groups—would have the chance to buy the team at a fair and reasonable price determined by an independent group of appraisers. Now to make this work, there are parts of it that aren’t workable. But the premise is what matters more than the nuts and bolts, because first of all this is probably never going to get a hearing, certainly while Republicans are in charge. It’s probably not going to move forward. But the premise is what matters. When you talk about fair and reasonable price, with Democrats you always have to say okay, red flag. But there are market values when an NFL, NBA, or MLB team proposes to sell itself. They get a market evaluation. Large accounting firms, financial analysts, banks—a group of people—come in and determine what the team is worth based on revenue, TV deals, and other factors. So for the purpose of this conversation, let’s say that’s what they’re going to use as the fair and reasonable price determined by independent appraisers. Often teams sell for more because there are so few of them, but for the sake of discussion we’ll work off that evaluation. I’m someone who believes you should be able to make as much money as you possibly can as long as you do it legally and within the system. You can’t be a drug dealer, you can’t be a mafia boss. But if you own a legal, law-abiding business, you should be able to make as much as you possibly can. Unless you’re utilizing the government to boost your profits. That’s why I’ve said the government needs to step in on utilities. Utilities are granted monopolies by the government. They wouldn’t be able to make the amount of money they’re making and raise rates the way they do without that monopoly. So yes, I don’t believe utilities should have unlimited profits. I get angry when I see articles that say utility profits have gone from 13 cents of every dollar spent to 15 cents of every dollar spent. One, because they’re crushing regular people. And two, they wouldn’t be able to do it without the government monopoly. I feel the same way about sports teams. Whether it’s the Bears or the Colts, these teams have dramatically increased their wealth—the value of the franchise and the money in ownership’s pockets—by using government resources. In the case of the Bears, Soldier Field was given hundreds of millions of dollars in renovations in the early 2000s. A massive amount of money was spent at the time. Now it was a horrible renovation job—if you’ve ever been to Soldier Field, that stadium stinks—but everybody signed off on it. That was the deal the Bears agreed to in the early 2000s. It was well over $500 million at the time, which in today’s dollars is over $1 billion. They used government money and sold the idea that they are the fabric of the city. Could you imagine Chicago without the Bears? We create economic development. We bring people together. We unite the city. All the talking points they use to make you think they actually care about the city they’re in. The Colts did the same thing. The Irsay family dramatically increased its wealth—now the daughters—based on taxpayers paying over $1 billion when you include interest for the building of Lucas Oil Stadium. Before that it was the Hoosier Dome, the RCA Dome, which taxpayers were paying on for 12 years after it was demolished. To this day, taxpayers still owe over $450 million on Lucas Oil Stadium almost 20 years after it was built. These sports teams sold themselves as community institutions in order to get that money. The Colts said we don’t have to move to Los Angeles. You don’t want to lose the Colts, right? But just 20 years earlier you built them a stadium to bring them here. Times change, they say. We’re part of the fabric of the city. We love Indianapolis. You don’t want to lose us. When pro sports teams—or utilities or anyone else—leverage government resources as their primary driver of economic development or profits, the free market rules I normally apply change. Normally I would say it’s outrageous for the government to prevent someone from moving their business. But if that business has utilized massive government investment and sold itself as part of the community to get that money, that changes things. Bernie Sanders is crazy most of the time. But when you look at it that way, this idea doesn’t sound all that crazy. The Colts and the Bears sold themselves as pillars of their communities. Then when the next opportunity comes along, they use the same sales pitch somewhere else. Now the Bears are forcing Illinois into a bidding war while looking at Arlington Heights. Illinois may just be trying to keep them in the state at this point. People make bad investments all the time. But these teams present themselves as the fabric of a city and then leave when the next subsidy opportunity appears. Now let’s talk about Braun’s response. He said, quote, “Indiana is open for business, while states like Illinois, New York, and California are collapsing under failed Democrat policies.” First of all, isn’t it rich that the Republican governor of Indiana says open for business means taking billions of dollars from you and giving it to a mega corporation? Because that’s why the Bears would come to Indiana. The Bears don’t care about Indiana. They’re going wherever the government is stupid enough to give them the best deal. If Illinois gets close enough, they’ll stay because most of their fan base is in the Chicago area and that’s best for business. They’ll pay a little more to stay if the numbers are close. But Braun’s version of open for business is how much of your money he can take and give to a franchise worth $8 billion. He also said, “Now they want to trap businesses and families in those failing systems,” as though the Chicago Bears are some mom-and-pop cobbler shop fixing shoes. As if the poor McCaskey family—owners of an $8 billion franchise—are trapped in Illinois after taking $500 million in stadium renovations less than 25 years ago. He continued, “Hoosiers won’t tolerate government control over who can buy or sell a business.” Wait a second. Government control is the reason utility monopolies exist. Government control is why rates are so high. But suddenly he cares about free markets? He also said Hoosiers won’t tolerate government control over where Americans choose to build a better life. You’re right, Mr. Braun. If the Bears want to come to Indiana and pay the whole freight, come on in. If they want to move to Hammond and build the stadium themselves, you won’t hear a peep out of me. But that’s not what they’re doing. They’re banking on politicians like you to take billions of dollars from taxpayers and give it to them. That’s not the free market. This is you, Mr. Braun, just like you’re trying to do with your own business interests in southwest Indiana, proposing billions of dollars for a road people there don’t want and that primarily benefits the logistics industry you happen to be part of. The governor of Indiana and the General Assembly are proposing taking billions of dollars of your money and giving it to a multibillion-dollar corporation. Braun once said he ran for governor because nothing gets done in Washington. But he was a senator in the majority party. What did he do there besides put his foot in his mouth and get passed by people like Tucker Carlson? Now he says this proposal is crazy. But Sanders responded by saying what’s crazy is a team worth $8 billion pitting Hoosier taxpayers against Illinois taxpayers in a race to the bottom for subsidies. Which quote do you agree with? Indiana is open for business—meaning giving away billions of dollars of taxpayer money to an $8 billion franchise? Or Sanders saying it’s crazy for billionaires to pit states against each other for corporate welfare? If you’re being honest with yourself, you probably agree with Sanders. His bill proposes a simple idea: before you move a team away from a community that has loved it for generations, you have to offer locals the chance to buy it at a fair price. The Chicago Bears. The Indianapolis Colts. These teams took public money because they said they were part of the community. Sanders added that the American people are tired of billionaires threatening to move teams unless they receive hundreds of millions in subsidies to build new stadiums. In this case, Bernie Sanders is right. Mike Braun is wrong. And every person should be challenging him on why he believes that unless you give billions of taxpayer dollars to a mega corporation, you’re not open for business.