Here’s How WI Can Keep Me Here

A rough estimate is that my wife and I pay about $15,000 a year in state income taxes, state and local sales taxes and local property taxes. We’re thinking about relocating and taking our spending (and all those jobs we create!) with us.

But wait, Wisconsin! You want us to stay? We’d love to. We can work this out. So, here’s the deal. Just give us our money back. Well, and then some. Our proposal is that you give us $45,000 next year to stay and then $15,000 a year (adjusted for inflation) and we’ll promise to stay to 2050 (when I’ll be 91, God willing). And, because I’m a generous guy, I’m willing to give you 10% of your money back. I know. Mensch city.

And all of those services we get for those tax dollars — garbage collection, snow plowing, cops, firefighters, parks, roads, schools. the UW and on and on? No, we won’t pay for any of that, but we’ll spend the money you give us — even some of it right here in Wisconsin!

Sound crazy? You bet it is, but that’s exactly what Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and his colleagues are proposing for the Milwaukee Brewers. The Vos deal, announced the other day in an eerily small press conference (we’ll get to that later) would give the Brewers $600 million in tax money over the next 27 years. About two-thirds of that would come from the state and the rest from Milwaukee, city and county.

Vos wants us to believe that it’s free money. His rational is that the Brewers generate about $20 million a year in income and sales taxes for the state — hence the $20 million a year they would get back from the state after the first year of the new agreement. Except in the first year they’d get $60 million or three times what they generate. On top of the $600 million from taxpayers, the Brewers would kick in $100 million toward the maintenance and improvement of their own stadium, but that’s actually only $60 million more than the $40 million they would have contributed anyway under their current agreement. So, they’re only really kicking in less than 10% of the costs.

In essence the Vos plan is based on extortion. He’s saying that we might as well give the Brewers all of their tax money back and then some because if we don’t they’ll leave and we’ll be in the same place. The first objection to that is the one I just raised above. What if every business and every taxpayer made the same threat? We’ll stay but only if you give us all of our tax money back.

The second objection is that it just isn’t true. Money spent at the ballpark is discretionary entertainment dollars. If the Brewers leave, that money will just be spent elsewhere in the economy. We might not replace the income taxes on a handful of big player salaries, but in the context of a $100 billion state budget that’s not even a rounding error.

It was strange how forlorn Vos and his two cronies looked all alone in that big stadium at their announcement. No governor, mayor or county executive. Not even anybody from the Brewers. (The team held their own press conference later in the day, but it did not include principle owner Mark Attanasio.) In fact, Gov. Tony Evers, Mayor Cavalier Johnson and County Executive David Crowley all issued tepid statements in response. The Democratic leaders in the Assembly and Senate said flat out that they were opposed to the Vos deal, though they left the door open to negotiations.

There’s good reason for that. A recent poll of Milwaukee County residents shows no enthusiasm for spending more tax dollars on the Brewers. Public Policy Polling asked: Generally speaking, do you support or oppose tax money being used to pay for improvements to the Brewers baseball stadium, sometimes called a stadium subsidy? A whopping 56% opposed this, only 25% supported it and 19% weren’t sure. And that’s in Milwaukee County. You can imagine what the numbers would look like outstate.

As I’ve written before, I still think some plan like this will get approved. Evers and Vos are supportive of doing something and powerful interest groups (unions for Evers and the Milwaukee business community for Vos) want this badly.

But whatever might get approved in the end will be a ripoff for taxpayers. Californian Mark Attanasio and his group of millionaire (if not billionaire) owners paid only $223 million for a club now worth, conservatively, $1.2 billion. At some point they’ll sell the team — made more valuable by taxpayer money already spent to build the stadium and about to be spent to improve and maintain it in the future — and laugh all the way to the bank.

But if the deal goes through look on the bright side. It gives you an opening. Just add up what you’re spending on taxes and threaten to leave if state and local governments don’t give it all back to you and with a bonus. See if you can get the same deal that a millionaire from California will get. And good luck with that.