corporate welfare

The owner of the NFL New England Patriots, Bob Kraft, has persuaded the Deval Patrick administration to spend $ 9 million of federal stimulus money to build a footbridge between parking lots at Foxboro's Gillette Stadium. 

I simply cannot believe that this is the most pressing use of money to jumpstart the Commonwealth's economy, but then again, Bob Kraft did max out for the Patrick campaign. So, I'm sure this became far more important to the Massachusetts economy than say, fixing bottlenecked ramps off I-290.

Of course, Kraft is happy to cajole public favors, like his use of Hartford as a bargaining chip to get MA state funds to build roads into Gillette Stadium in the first place. Sleaze

Something tells me this is NOT what the original "Patriots" fought the Revolution over

It wasn't "Give me corporate welfare, or give me death!" 

It's Mischief Night tonight, and I hear the "Wild RINO". Linda McMahon has picked out her Halloween costume for tomorrow evening.

(Try not to scare Rahm Emanuel!, Linda)

One thing that Ms. McMahon is eager to portray is being the self-reliant hardscrabble businesswoman who rose to billions solely through single minded hard work and perseverance.

And just like the sport: Wrestling's fake. And so is the WWE's true committment to free enterprise.

That is, unless your definition of "free enterprise" includes sinking one's snout deep, deep into the public trough guzzling corporate welfare.

From the Journal-Inquirer.

A top aide to Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Linda E. McMahon today defended her company’s acceptance of millions of dollars in state tax credits, as both Republican and Democratic opponents pilloried her for what they called McMahon’s “stimulus package” and “taxpayer-funded bailout.”The attacks by former 2nd District Congressman Robert R. Simmons, the leading Republican seeking to unseat U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, and by a Dodd surrogate, state Democratic Party spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan, came after the state subsidies to World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. were reported Thursday by the Journal Inquirer. 

The newspaper cited state records that show WWE has collected nearly $3 million in digital and media tax credits, most of which were issued just eight weeks before McMahon resigned her position as its chief executive officer to run for office.

Yep, Linda McMahon's immensely profitable wrestling empire gets subsidized by the Connecticut taxpayer, who are watching the income tax raised on the top bracket, public services reduced, and the state try and borrow its way through the recession. Indeed, unionized state employees even agreed to concessions, which is more than can be said about the state's would-be entertainment titans.

The apologists for the state's highly subsidized entertainment industry accuse McMahon critics of "jumping the shark" .  You see, it was other politicians who wrote these lucrative credits into the law.

Sorry, none of them are spending millions denouncing bailouts when they run a profitable corporation that takes them themselves.  It's "Happy Days" alright for the McMahon family, but the average CT taxpayers feels like they are in remake of "Jaws" 

So the news media has concluded that Ms. McMahon, whose family controls the vast percentage of the WWE's stock, converted tax credits from the state into funds available for her campaign. Maybe this is a form of "public campaign finance"

But it gets worse.

Despite the fact that the WWE was very profitable notwithstanding the recession, shortly before she left her CEO post  at the WWE Linda McMahon went on a frenzy of layoffs and cost-cutting intended to raise profit margins.

Jan. 9, 2009, 9:38 a.m. ESTMcMahon & Co. has announced that it is cutting 10% of its staff, which should result in annual cost savings of approximately $8 million. In exchange for that, the company will take a one-time charge of $3 million. WWE also noted that the company has completed an evaluation of its operating and capital expenditures and has identified "additional efficiencies." In short, more cost cuts are on the way. The company's ultimate goal is to trim $20 million from its expense structure in 2009. 

I'm the last person to lambaste a business that cuts costs to stave off competition, or to stockpile cash, or to pay off lenders and creditors.  And we are going to see a lot of very necessary cuts like that in Corporate America. But the WWE is essentially a monopoly in pro wrestling, they have consistently earned a profit and have $200 million in cash with virtually no long term debt..     So why the urgency to cut costs?  Well, as I noted the McMahon family owns 70% of the WWE  Let's apply 70% of the $20 million in cut costs; well that means $14 million inures to the McMahon family..

So,does the Wild RINO gets to finance most of her U.S. Senate campaign with "new money" without having to dip into the family fortune? Sure looks it.

McMahon's campaign has run a TV ad telling folks how tough it was for her and Vince starting out, even having to declare bankruptcy and losing their house starting their business.

Hey Linda, like that's special. Please.

What really sickens me is it appears she is paying for this ad using the extra profits she earned after firing over 60 Connecticut employees.  

How many of those 60 WWE's employees are going to lose their house so their old boss can finance her U.S. Senate bid without dipping into the accumulated family fortune?  In 2006 Joe Lieberman eviscerated the campaign of Ned Lamont after running this ad.    

It's tough wearing a costume as a free market Republican and expecting people to believe you; Linda.

Especially when you destroy jobs, not create them . And collect subsidies. Not cut them.

We're onto the trick, Linda. You already got the treat.

From the Wall Street Journal's Digits Blog:

Apple’s iTunes makes saving music from CDs onto one’s personal computer a simple process, but doing the same with a DVD is much more complicated endeavor. Most DVDs are encoded with digital rights management technology to prevent copying.

Most DVD-viewers think that’s hypocrisy. A study of 1,000 consumers conducted by the National Consumers League found that 90% think that they should have ability to back up DVDs on their personal computers in the same way they are able to do with music from a CD ...

However, a recent lawsuit has been broiling in the courts, with several major Hollywood movie studios suing RealNetworks, a company that makes the RealDVD player.

At first, it was beyond me why Hollywood would be against this type of innovation. Then I learned about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a piece of legislation that prohibits backing up DVDs. As FreedomWorks recently pointed out:

There are acceptable avenues of protecting intellectual property, but banning a new product that maintains the DRM encryption and prohibits copying for distribution in the name of fighting piracy makes no sense.  All this does is impose substantial new limitations on consumers and their use of the DVDs they purchase.

When we usually think about corporate welfare, we think about all of the special tax credits and deductions along with all of the subsidies that only the most powerful companies (i.e. the ones with the most lobbyists) get. For the Right to move beyond the simplistic arguments of the past on fiscal and tax policy, we should battle corporate welfare, not only in the tax code but in regulatory matters as well. Many states already have film tax credits which try to "promote economic development" by essentially paying filmakers to produce movies in their states. Just as these film tax credits at the state level is corporate welfare, so are many of the regulatory matters that fly under the radar.

We have to move on from the "tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts"-only message and refine a message that can work for those who don't have lobbyists and large political action committees working for them: government should not pick winners and losers in the market.