Political Quotes

“I rise today to introduce a tax bill that would correct a serious misallocation of our limited resources under present law: a tax subsidy that inures largely to the benefit of wealthy sports franchise owners and their players. This legislation-- the Stop Tax-exempt Arena Debt Issuance Act, or STADIA for short--was introduced by the Senator from New York for the first time in 1996. Since that time, the bill has attracted the close scrutiny of bond counsel and their clients, and has received much attention in the press, almost all of which has been favorable. Mr. Keith Olbermann, at the time an anchor of ESPN's Sportscenter program, even declared that the introduction of the bill was ``paramount among all other sports stories'' when introduced. Passage of the bill, Mr. Olbermann said, would be ``the vaccine that . . . could conceivably at least lead towards the cure, if not cure immediately, almost all the ills of sports.'' Mr. Olbermann may just be right about the importance of this bill, both to sports fans and to taxpayers. The bill closes a big loophole, a loophole that ultimately injures state and local governments and other issuers of tax-exempt bonds, that provides an unintended federal subsidy that contravenes Congressional intent, that underwrites bidding wars among cities battling for professional sports franchises, and that enriches persons who need no federal assistance whatsoever.”