Professional sports stadiums should be privately funded and owned.

1. Pro's entire argument is based upon the assumption that government influence is malicious and isn't in the best interest of the people. An argument which he provides no support for. I would like my opponent to take a look at other subsidizations that benefit the people. Firefighters, police force, public libraries, museums, public beaches, etc. Public beaches are an excellent example of an positive externality that should be subsidized. Generally for the tourism it brings in. In economics it is a basic theory to subsidize the externalities that benefit us. And tax the externalities that hurt us. My opponent also operates on the false assumption that there are tons of private and non profit industries that are a tourist attraction that attract people to the city and raise property value. "The NFL has the highest per-game attendance of any domestic professional sports league in the world, drawing over 67,000 spectators per game for each of its two most recently completed seasons, 2006 and 2007" SOURCE: . http://www.nfl.com... My opponent also brought up Drug Rehabilitation programs as an example that shouldn't be subsidized. However he ignores the logic of the situation by easily dismissing it. I personally believe that the people should decide how to spend their tax money, thus, I'm sure, if you took a poll about whether participants would choose Option A and pay a small percentage of their tax dollars to support a drug rehab clinic, or Option B would rather pay a much larger amount of their taxes to fund unemployment, welfare, law enforcement, etc. Most citizens would choose the lower cost option of opening a clinic. Furthermore some of them might not like the surprise bonuses payments of Option B when they are woken up in the middle of the night by a drug-crazed lunatics threatening their lives in exchange for drug money. Pro's arguments to my contention provides no evidence of industries that would suddenly warrant tax dollars because of their tourism, property value, and economic impact. Furthermore he used ill-reasoned logic and shoddy examples of why my contention is unfeasible. 2. Pros refutation of my sources are misleading at best. To start out my source was from a site that had a compilation of articles all written and researched by different people. Pro visited the site, choose different articles that supported his opinion, and then is using them in a weak attempt to invalidate my evidence by stating that they came from the same source. No, they aren't from the same source, they are different articles, just the same website that collects these articles. Furthermore, Pros entire argument is simply a collection of quotations from other people. Quotes that he doesn't bother to explain or arrange in a coherent fashion. Instead of using the quotes to supplement his argument, pro uses the quotes as his entire argument. In fact, my opponent uses more room in his debate for quotations then he does for his own original sentences. In a basic sense my argument is this: The taxpayers (mainly the residents and businesses located in the city where the stadium exists) should partially fund the stadium to the point where they are receiving a benefit out of the bargain. The economic impacts of the sports stadium can be measured, my opponent believes the same as I do, as he cited multiple times, the value of sports stadiums from almost 17 years ago. An example being: "Looking at new money only, the economic impact of teams such as the Seahawks and the Mariners begins to shrink. In 1995, the football team's out-of-state revenue generated $66.7 million in local economic activity. The impact of that money amounted to 1,388 jobs in King County. The Mariners' out-of-state funds generated only $42.9 million and 427 jobs according to a >>>>1993 study<<<<<<" Since we both agree the benefits can be determined, then is it not beneficial for the taxpayers to pay in part for the benefit they are receiving both in terms of jobs, business profits, and property values? Many other externalities are funded (such as beaches) which have similarities in terms of their effect on business, property, jobs and tourism. My opponent is essentially advocating that the taxpayer of Minnesota cut off their nose to spite their face, and let another state reap the tourism simply because government is getting involved.