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BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME: DO TAXPAYERFINANCED SPORTS STADIUMS, CONVENTION

CENTERS AND HOTELS DELIVER AS PROMISED

FOR AMERICA’S CITIES?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 29, 2007

Serial No. 110–23

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSISGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DIANE E. WATSON, California

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JARON R. BOURKE, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 29, 2007 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Demause, Neil, author, Brooklyn, NY; Heywood Sanders, professor, Department of Public Administration, University of Texas, San Antonio,

TX; and Michael Decker, senior managing director, research and public

policy, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association,

Washington, DC ............................................................................................ 131

Decker, Michael ......................................................................................... 165

Demause, Neil ........................................................................................... 131

Sanders, Heywood ..................................................................................... 144

Hogi, Joyce, Bronx, NY; Frank Rashid, Marygrove College, Detroit, MI;

and Nick Licata, president, Seattle City Council, Seattle, WA ................. 13

Hogi, Joyce ................................................................................................. 13

Licata, Nick ................................................................................................ 47

Rashid, Frank ............................................................................................ 35

Humphreys, Dr. Brad, economist, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL; and Dennis Zimmerman, director of projects,

American Tax Policy Institute, Falls Church, VA ...................................... 67

Humphreys, Dr. Brad ............................................................................... 67

Zimmerman, Dennis .................................................................................. 75

Korb, Donald, Chief Counsel, Internal Revenue Service, Washington, DC . 96

Murphy, Bob, president, Dayton Dragons, Dayton, OH ................................ 116

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Braley, Hon. Bruce L., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Iowa, prepared statement of .................................................................... 178

Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Illinois, prepared statement of ................................................................ 62

Decker, Michael, senior managing director, research and public policy,

the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, Washington, DC, prepared statement of ................................................................... 167

Demause, Neil, author, Brooklyn, NY, prepared statement of ..................... 134

Hogi, Joyce, Bronx, NY, prepared statement of ............................................. 17

Humphreys, Dr. Brad, economist, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, prepared statement of ........................................... 69

Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 55

Korb, Donald, Chief Counsel, Internal Revenue Service, Washington, DC,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 100

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 4

Licata, Nick, president, Seattle City Council, Seattle, WA, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 49

Rashid, Frank, Marygrove College, Detroit, MI, prepared statement of ..... 38

Sanders, Heywood, professor, Department of Public Administration, University of Texas, San Antonio, TX, prepared statement of ........................ 146

Turner, Hon. Michael R., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 92

Zimmerman, Dennis, director of projects, American Tax Policy Institute,

Falls Church, VA, prepared statement of ................................................... 77

(1)

BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME: DO TAXPAYER-FINANCED SPORTS STADIUMS, CONVENTION CENTERS AND HOTELS DELIVER

AS PROMISED FOR AMERICA’S CITIES?

THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Cummings, Kucinich, Davis of Illinois,

Tierney, Watson, Braley, Souder, Turner, and Issa.

Staff present: Jaron Bourke, staff director; Noura Erakat, counsel; Jean Gosa, clerk; Nidia Salazar, staff assistant; Amy

Vossbrinck, scheduler, Office of Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich;

Erin Holloway, legislative assistant, Office of Congressman Dennis

J. Kucinich; Leneal Scott, information systems manager; Jay

O’Callaghan and Kristina Husar, minority professional staff members; John Cuaderes, minority senior investigator and policy advisor; Benjamin Chance, minority clerk; and Meredith Liberty, minority staff assistant and correspondence coordinator.

Mr. KUCINICH. The Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will now come to

order.

Without objection, the Chair and the ranking member will have

5 minutes to make opening statements followed by opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other Member who seeks recognition.

Without objection, Members and witnesses will have 5 legislative

days to submit a written statement or extraneous materials for the

record.

Good morning and welcome.

This is the second hearing in a series of hearings on the state

of urban America. The series intends to take a closer look at American cities, their progress, their problems and their future. Today’s

hearing will examine the use of taxpayer-financed debt for the construction of sports stadiums, convention centers and hotels as well

as recent regulatory changes by the IRS that could significantly increase the use of tax-exempt bonds for historically private activities.

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Last week, our hearing looked at the subprime mortgage industry and the problem of foreclosure, the payday lending industry

and the enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act. In the

coming weeks, we will also take a look at the retail and grocery

store industries as well as access to health care in the heart of

urban America.

Today, we are taking a look at the use of tax-exempt financed

debt for the construction of sports stadiums, convention centers and

hotels. My own city of Cleveland has had experience in this regard.

In 1990, the Central Market Gateway Project was formed to develop new stadiums for the Cleveland Indians and the Cleveland

Cavaliers. Developers mounted a ballot initiative known as Issue

2 and made claims in their paid advertising that will sound familiar to our witnesses: ‘‘Who wins with Issue 2? We all do; 28,000

jobs for the jobless, neighborhood housing for the homeless, $15

million a year for schools for our children, revenues for city and

county clinics and hospitals for the sick, energy assistance for the

elderly.’’

The public relations campaign was coupled with hardball threats

from Major League Baseball to relocate the Cleveland Indians. The

initiative passed by a narrow margin and by 1996, the total cost

was up to $462 million, two-thirds of which came from the public,

and by 1997, that cost was still rising.

By the way, for the record, we did invite Major League Baseball

to testify today. They declined.

Cleveland had a municipal football stadium and an intensely

loyal fan base, affectionately known as the ‘‘Dawg Pound.’’ But that

wasn’t enough and the Cleveland Browns left Cleveland for a new

stadium built with taxpayer subsidies in Baltimore. NFL officials

insisted that a new stadium and not renovations would be necessary to get a replacement-football team. Cleveland replaced its

stadium with a football only structure paid for primarily with tax

money.

After spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize stadiums for professional baseball, basketball and football,

Cleveland’s economy does not show the appropriate progress. We

have among the highest poverty rates in the Nation and one of the

highest foreclosure rates. This month marks the 132nd month or

exactly 11 years in which Ohio’s job growth is below the national

average. This figure is unprecedented nationally.

Whereas Ohio is growing slower than the rest of the country,

Cleveland is growing slower than the rest of Ohio. During the 2000

recession, Cuyahoga County lost 75,733 jobs or 9.3 percent of all

of its jobs.

The Gateway Project, which promised to generate tens of thousands of new jobs ushered in a period of net jobs lost since its construction. The Gateway Project neighborhood is particularly striking because the neighborhood is even more vacant and has even

fewer jobs after the construction of the Gateway Project than before.

Nationally, sports stadium construction is not effective at boosting the local economy and revitalizing urban neighborhoods. Academic research shows that on all counts, sports stadiums add no

benefit, no substantial economic benefit to the cities in which they

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are built, no new jobs, new additional revenue for schools, no new

business, no additional value.

In a review of the academic literature, economist Andrew Zimbalist concluded, ‘‘Few fields of empirical economic research offer virtual unanimity of findings. Yet, independent work on the economic

impact of stadiums and arenas has uniformly found there is no statistically positive correlation between sports facility construction

and economic development.’’

While taxpayer-financed stadiums do not seem to add to the

wealth of the public who pay for them, they do add to the wealth

of team owners. Consider the Detroit Tigers and the Detroit Lions.

We will hear about them and their stadiums from one of our witnesses today. The value of the Detroit Tigers rose from $83 million

in 1995 to $290 million in 2001, the year after the team moved into

their new stadium. The Lions’ increase in value is even more dramatic, rising from $150 million in 1996 to $839 million in 2006.

Economic benefit to the team owners was certainly the case for

George Bush, who in 1989 spent about $600,000 to buy a small

stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team. During his ownership,

Mr. Bush and his co-investors were able to get voters to approve

a sales tax increase to pay more than two-thirds of the cost of a

new $191 million stadium for the Rangers as well as surrounding

development. Mr. Bush and his partners also received a loan from

the public authority charged with financing the stadium to cover

their private share of the construction costs.

By 1994, the Rangers, in their new publicly financed stadium,

were sold for $250 million, a threefold increase in value in merely

5 years and one that was largely attributable to a new taxpayer

subsidized stadium. Mr. Bush personally came away with a profit

of $14.9 million. In this case, the tax-exempt financing indisputably

benefited the owners of the Texas Rangers.

Public financing of sports benefits the team owners but not, according to academic consensus, the public. So is tax-exempt financing of stadium construction an appropriate use of taxpayer funds?

Well, the law on this matter is the 1986 Tax Reform Act. As our

witnesses will testify, the 1986 act removed sports stadiums from

the list of eligible private activities that could be financed with taxexempt private activity bonds. That was the state of affairs until

last year when the IRS issued three rulings.

Two of them were private letter rulings favorable to the Yankees

and the Mets, allowing them to use previously prohibited private

payments for debt service on tax-exempt bonds. Thus, the new

Yankees and Mets stadiums can be built at taxpayer expense. The

third was a proposed rulemaking that generalized the Yankees and

Mets rulings. The effect of these three rulings would seem to subvert the intent of the 1986 Tax Reform Act as regards to public financing of sports stadium construction.

Today, we will have the opportunity to hear from experts from

around the country as well as from the Chief Counsel of the IRS

on these questions.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. At this point, I would ask the witnesses to stand.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Let the record show that the witnesses answered

in the affirmative.

I would like to introduce Ms. Joyce Hogi. Ms. Hogi has lived in

the Bronx, NY, for the past 30 years. Her apartment used to look

out onto the largest public park in the South Bronx. That is

Macomb’s Dam Park, right?

She now looks onto a constructionsite for a planned parking garage for the new Yankee Stadium.

She has been a community leader in the unsuccessful effort to

save public park land in her community from destruction to make

room for a new Yankee Stadium.

Why don’t you begin with your testimony, and then I will introduce the individual witnesses as we go along?

STATEMENTS OF JOYCE HOGI, BRONX, NY; FRANK RASHID,

MARYGROVE COLLEGE, DETROIT, MI; AND NICK LICATA,

PRESIDENT, SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL, SEATTLE, WA

STATEMENT OF JOYCE HOGI

Ms. HOGI. Good morning. My name is Joyce Hogi. I am a 63 year

old widow who has lived in the Bronx for the past 30 years, specifically the South Bronx area surrounding Yankee Stadium. Thank

you so much for this opportunity to submit testimony concerning

the community’s reaction to the alienation of our public park land

for private use by the Yankee Stadium organization.

This morning, I will tell you the sad story of how 22 acres of

park land primarily known as Macomb’s Dam and the southern

portion of John Mullaly Parks were taken from our community,

how the shameful consequences of the construction of the new stadium is on the destruction of our parks.

I have laid out my testimony in three sections.

The importance of the parks to the community: Macomb’s Dam

was opened in 1899. It immediately drew neighborhood children

and aspiring athletes to its extensive recreational facilities. The

quarter mile track was a favorite for local and European runners.

The track was named Joseph Yancey Track and Field in honor of

the co-founder of the New York Pioneers Track and Field Club, an

interracial team that developed many Olympic athletes.

These parks are located in the poorest congressional district in

the United States but were essentially our Central Park. It was

one of the few linear parks in New York City. These parks continued to be used for sports activities for both adults and youth after

all these years. They were invaluable to us. They contained a soccer field, a running track, two baseball and softball fields, handball

and 16 tennis courts.

The process that set in motion the demolition of our parks had

no standard and was arbitrary and capricious.

The overall view from the New York City Department of Parks

and Recreation stated that it proposed to allow for the redevelopment of a new Yankee stadium by the Yankees on portions of those

parks adjacent to the existing stadium site. This new open air stadium with a capacity for 54,000 spectators, which I might add is

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4,000 less than the current facility seats, would replace the existing

82 year old stadium which can effectively accommodate a modern

baseball team and provide greatly improved spectator and parking

facilities. This project proposes to construct four new parking garages.

This statement sounded the death knell for the parks and for the

thousands of residents and school children in an area deficient of

parks, exacerbating other problems already experienced by us.

After our initial shock, we came together as a community.

Our New York State legislators, on a day at the end of the legislative session when hundreds of bills were passed, removed the

protections ensuring that our beloved parks would remain undeveloped in perpetuity. They decided it was in our best interest to offer

a parcel of land that is 40 percent bigger than that of the World

Trade Center, not for a public good but to enrich a private business.

We at SaveOurParks! obtained the transcript from the assembly

and were just stunned to see how casually the vote to relinquish

our beloved park land in such an impoverished community was

conducted. Despite the fact that no efforts were made to inform the

community of the impending park alienation, the assembly member

who introduced the bill proclaimed no community opposition to the

project. We were shunned by our elected officials, and we were accused of bringing in professional protesters by Randy Levine, president of the Yankees Organization, as if the community could not

discern when it was getting a bad deal.

The media mostly was enamored and was not able to understand

the community’s point of view as the Yankees had hired Howard

Rubenstein Associates, a major well connected public relations firm

in New York City to provide a steady stream of material to all the

media outlet, selling their projects.

While some newspapers would print an occasional account of the

proceedings, Patrick Arden of Metro New York got it and he stayed

on the case. He understood the injustices. He showed up at all our

hearings. He wrote about it every chance he could get.

SaveOurParks!, supported by other organizations seeking alternative transportation, believed that everything should be done to

encourage mass transportation to alleviate the need for the garages. We are in a highly affected asthma community.

We argued for improved subways, the building of a Metro-North

station at Yankee Stadium and for the rehabilitation of the neighborhood’s Melrose train station on the Harlem and New Haven

lines. We argued for train tickets tied to game tickets as an incentive to use mass transit. We have a congressional appropriation for

$2.4 million to upgrade the Metro-North stations in the Bronx and

to construct a stadium at Yankee Stadium. Everything seemed to

be lined up for a station, but the project did not address it.

Economic development for the community will occur as a result

of this new stadium, we were told by the supporters. We contend

that economic development will occur as a result of our changing

times, not by a stadium. The New York Yankees have been our

neighbors for over 80 years. Given the poverty and unemployment

rates in the South Bronx, it would seem that no economic benefits

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have been realized of having the legendary Yankees in our community.

We were told at a contentious community board meeting by

parks officials that we are getting bigger and better parks that we

would not get if the Yankees weren’t building a new stadium. We

already had funds allocated to refurbish those parks, and the waterfront parks that we were promised were already included in the

plan by the city to build pathways along the entire Harlem River.

So it did not need to be a part of this project.

Additionally, the replacement parks we are promised are scheduled to be built atop concrete parking garages and are subject to

closure on game days for security reasons.

Macomb’s Dam Park was renovated in the 1980’s with Federal

funds. To gain approval to convert this park to a non-park or private use required that the following criteria be met: that the review must look at practical alternatives for the project, that new

park land must be of the same market value and that new park

land must be of equivalent usefulness and location. None of these

applied.

The plan states that the Bronx does not have enough quality

park land in the first place. It also says that new park land is supposed to be easier for people with disabilities to get to. The parks

on top of parking garages are not easier.

The consequences for Macomb’s Dam and portion of John Mullaly

Parks caused by the construction of the new Yankee Stadium, in

a word, shameful. Imagine living across the street from a major development, 100 feet or so, with trucks lining up outside as early as

4 a.m., idling for up to an hour or longer.

Imagine dust coming into your apartment that cannot be controlled regardless of how tightly your windows are closed. Imagine

mud and water ponding on the streets in front of you.

Imagine, if you will, the noise from jackhammers going nonstop.

I have had residents tell me they leave home during the day because they cannot stand the noise.

Imagine water from your taps running brown from who knows

what.

Imagine trying to cross a busy street with children or as an elderly person dodging traffic because drivers are losing patience

with trying to maneuver around all the truck traffic.

Imagine the tennis center vendor who lost nine of his courts to

the construction but was told he could operate until the end of

April 2007. He received a letter from DPR, the Department of

Parks and Recreation, a week before he had to close the remainder

of the courts on February 28th because construction was ahead of

schedule and storage equipment would now occupy that space.

Imagine the drone of helicopters flying over the construction area

up to 7 days a week.

Our parks and over 400 trees were sacrificed to make room for

the new stadium and four new parking garages. The stadium will

sit in a residential area 100 feet from several fully occupied apartment houses. Residents of these buildings will face a monolithic 14-

story wall enclosing the stadium isolating residents, even the numerous Yankee fans, from the neighborhood. Imagine the trees you

are used to seeing outside your front window.

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There has been a total lack of accountability during the construction.

Finally, around midnight, Sunday, August 13, 2006, the Parks

Department staff came into our community, closed off this lovely

tree-lined 167th Street, put up fencing around Macomb’s Dam

Park, posted security guards and trucked what was later determined to be very high quality mulch to put around the trees as a

backdrop for the groundbreaking of the new stadium scheduled for

a couple of days later.

When residents arrived on Monday morning for their walks, jogs

on the track, they were told this is private property and they

weren’t let in.

The day after the groundbreaking, the trees were cut down.

We had counted on the National Park Service to protect us. We

found later on they were complicit with the city, the State and the

Yankees prior to our learning about the project to hand over those

federally funded parks to the Yankees.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hogi follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank the witness, Ms. Hogi, for her

participation in this.

Before I introduce the next witness, I want to ask the witnesses

to endeavor to keep their testimony to 5 minutes, and your entire

testimony will be included in the record of the proceedings.

At the end of this first panel, our ranking member, Mr. Issa, will

be making a statement, and all other Members who wish to have

their statements put in the record will be so ordered.

At this point, I would like to introduce Mr. Frank Rashid. Is that

the right pronunciation?

Mr. RASHID. Correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Rashid is a professor of english literature and

the English Department Chair at Marygrove College.

He has lived in Detroit, MI, his entire life and was a founding

member of the Tiger Stadium Fan Club. The fan club engaged in

a successful decade-long battle to block public stadium subsidies in

Detroit.

Mr. Rashid is on the advisory board of Wayne State University

Press’ Michigan Writers Series and serves as vice president of the

Michigan Association of Departments of English.

Welcome to this committee. We look forward to your testimony.

STATEMENT OF FRANK RASHID

Mr. RASHID. Thank you very much.

Good morning. I thank the Members of this honorable body for

inviting me to testify about my experiences in fighting against public subsidies for stadiums.

Mr. KUCINICH. Would you like to start over and keep that mic

close?

Mr. RASHID. Sure.

Mr. KUCINICH. I would ask all witnesses to keep the mic relatively close. Thank you.

Mr. RASHID. Thank you for inviting me to testify about my experiences in fighting against public subsidies for stadiums.

In 1987, four friends and I formed a group intended to save Tiger

Stadium, the home of the Detroit Tigers. We began our efforts by

highlighting the stadium’s distinctive history and its role as common ground for generations of Detroiters. We discovered, however,

that the most compelling reason to save the stadium was to save

public money, and we committed to a fight to prevent public stadium subsidies. That fight lasted nearly 10 years.

We used every legal method to block public stadium financing,

but we finally ran out of options and money. The Tigers moved into

Comerica Park in 2000. Two years later, the Detroit Lions, who in

1975 had moved to a publicly financed suburban stadium, returned

to Detroit again helped by public subsidies. Downtown Detroit now

has two new stadiums absorbing hundreds of millions of dollars in

direct public financing.

Local officials promised that these stadiums would bring new

jobs, economic spinoff, contracts for minority firms and increased

city revenues for more police and city services. Not one of these

promises has been fulfilled. In the last 2 years, the city has hosted

the All-Star Game, the Super Bowl and the World Series, but city

residents have seen no benefits from these events. Detroit faces a

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financial crisis and has to cut police and fire protection, library

hours and trash pickup.

Comerica Park and Ford Field have operated for six and four

seasons, respectively, but the blessings of major league sports have

yet to rain down upon us. Franchise value and ticket prices, however, have increased dramatically. In effect, we gave hundreds of

millions of dollars to two billionaires so they could increase their

wealth and raise their prices.

Detroit’s two stadiums suck up resources that could go to schools,

police, libraries, parks and proven development strategies. The

Michigan Strategic Fund was established in 1984 to promote economic development and create jobs. Wise stewardship of this fund

could have helped to address Michigan’s economic crisis. Instead,

we wasted much of it on a stadium that employs the same number

of people as the one it replaced.

Replacement stadiums like Comerica Park and the proposed New

York stadium absorb ancillary revenue-generating activity for the

team owner, eliminating small businesses, parking lots, souvenir

stands, bars and restaurants that contribute more to a local economy than one large recipient of abatements and subsidies.

Detroit must close 30 public schools, but we have two new stadiums. We have shut down several public library branches and restricted hours in those that remain. We have few organized Little

Leagues, and we can’t maintain parks and playgrounds for children, but we have two stadiums for the big leagues and their millionaire athletes.

Detroiters have to report accidents and crimes at police precincts,

and we must travel further now to do so since the police department has replaced 15 neighborhood precincts with six centralized

districts. Our mayor proposes days off without pay for city workers

including fire and emergency responders and curtails trash

pickups, but the two new stadiums receive plenty of police protection and their trash always gets collected.

We call animal control and get no answer. We report a dangerous

building and get placed on hold. We call 911 and get a busy signal.

We pay the highest millage rate of any municipality in southeast

Michigan. We can’t afford enough emergency workers and phone

lines, but we have two new stadiums.

Detroit needs solutions that would come from a comprehensive

urban policy that equitably distributes resources and opportunities.

We can list strategies that would strengthen our city and improve

our quality of life. Two new stadiums are not on this list.

But stadiums offer politicians the appearance of accomplishment.

With limited available funds, Detroit officials focused on stadiums

because their powerful beneficiaries—major league sports, team

owners, developers, bond attorneys, construction firms, building

and trade unions—would support the campaign to make them happen. Our local leaders persuaded voters that stadiums would solve

myriad social problems. They pushed the projects through approval

quickly with as little legislative oversight as possible, then sold the

stadiums to the public and then dispensed the funds.

At first, we were incredibly naive about all this. We assumed

that leaders of cash-strapped cities and counties wanted to save

money. Our self-financing stadium renovation plan received praise

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from architects, stadium experts and baseball historians, but most

politicians dismissed it.

Finally, a sympathetic development consultant explained to us

that its budget was too small and it required no public money. We

should have made the project bigger, he said. How could we expect

politicians to be interested when we gave them no role?

I now understand why so many wasteful schemes receive funding

while proven strategies get no support. Publicly funded stadiums

are distractions from purposeful solutions to the urban crises.

As a lifelong Detroit resident, I am grateful to the members of

this committee for holding hearings on the state of urban America

and especially grateful for allowing me to participate.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rashid follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Rashid.

I want to note my gratitude for the presence of my colleagues,

Mr. Davis, Mr. Tierney, Mr. Braley, Mr. Turner and, of course, Mr.

Issa.

I would like to introduce our next witness, Mr. Nick Licata. Nick

Licata is the president of the Seattle City Council in Seattle, WA.

Mr. Licata has a history of civic activity and community involvement. Among his list of activities, he was Co-Chair of Citizens for

More Important Things. The group opposed excessive public funding for professional sports stadiums.

Welcome, Mr. Licata, and you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF NICK LICATA

Mr. LICATA. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Kucinich and

Ranking Member Issa and members of the Subcommittee on the

Domestic Policy for asking me to speak to you today.

I am Nick Licata, as was pointed out, a Seattle City Council

Member and for the past 12 years have been at the heart of Seattle’s debate about the use of public funding for professional sports

stadiums.

In 1995 before I was elected to the City Council, I did indeed cofound the Citizens for More Important Things along with Chris

Van Dyk and Mark Baerwaldt, two other businessmen. This group

fought the use of taxes to construct three stadiums for professional

sports organizations over the past dozen years, and appendix 1 that

you have provides a chronology of the efforts to secure public funding for these facilities in Seattle. It is a pattern that has been repeated across the Nation where perfectly useable facilities are declared too shabby for the home team.

Seattle rebuilt our Seattle Coliseum in 1995 to the specifications

of Seattle’s professional basketball team.

Mr. KUCINICH. You can hold on for a minute until we get these

buzzes.

Don’t believe the 15 minutes. You will have your time.

Mr. LICATA. OK, great, this will be shorter than 15 minutes.

I would like to outline three experiences, the first with our professional basketball team. In 1995, Seattle rebuilt our Seattle Coliseum to the specifications of this professional basketball team, the

Supersonics, and we created the state-of-the-art NBA Key Arena at

a public cost of $75 million. The sale of luxury boxes was to pay

for the construction of those bonds. When the team could not sell

enough luxury boxes, basically, the city had to pick up the tab.

Nine years later after the city has paid millions annually, over $6

million a year annually and over half the public debt still outstanding, the team said they wanted a new facility because it was outdated.

What happened then was that when they got the cold shoulder

from the politicians and the public, the Sonics were sold for an estimated $80 million profit for the new owner who now wants the

public to contribute $400 million for an even bigger facility.

In the case of our baseball team, in 1995 while the city was remodeling the Coliseum for the Supersonics, our professional baseball team, the Mariners, declared that their venue, the 18 year old

Kingdome, was obsolete for baseball and threatened to leave SeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:07 Dec 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38037.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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attle if they were not provided with a new stadium with a retractable roof at the cost to the public of over $300 million. The previous

year, the county had spent $73 million repairing the Kingdome’s

leaky room where they played, and a few weeks after local voters

rejected a sales tax to pay for the new Mariners stadium, the State

legislature met in emergency session to approve a tax package that

eventually built it despite voters’ wishes.

In the case of our professional football team, the Seattle

Seahawks, seeing how successful the Mariners were, demanded

they too wanted significant remodeling of the Kingdome and they

threatened to move to California if they did not get it. Before they

could move, Microsoft founder Paul Allen purchased the team, subject to public approval of a $300 million public funding package. He

spent $7 million on the election, outspent the opposition at least 1

to 20 if not 1 to 40, and won the election by 00.2 percent. The

Kingdome then was imploded with still $100 million debt unpaid.

Now what does this pattern reveal? It says just what our city

staff discovered when reviewing the life of professional sport facilities around the Nation. When public money is used, professional

sport facilities are remodeled every 6 years.

Why? Because public money is readily available and free to the

teams.

Where does this money come from? Proponents have argued that

these taxes are insignificant since they are on restaurant meals,

hotel rooms, car rentals and other retail purchases. This mixture

of revenue streams does mount up. If pending State legislation in

our State passes for the new Sonics basketball arena and a speedway for NASCAR as they are also requesting public funding, our

city, county and State governments will have contributed $2.3 billion over the past two dozen years for new professional sport

venues.

Our own Seattle experience has shown that the cost continue to

go up. Appendix 2 that you have shows that certain crimes increased around the two new stadiums from what they had previously been in the same neighborhood, contributing to increased

public costs.

In ending, let me say that our economy, the Seattle economy, had

a downturn. There was a National downturn, but our stadiums in

no way contributed to lessening that downturn and, in fact, took

money away from Seattle that we could have spent in providing

basic services to our citizens.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Licata follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Licata, president of the Seattle

City Council, for your testimony.

We are now going to have the statement of the ranking member,

Mr. Issa, and at the conclusion of that, we will take a short recess

to go vote.

Mr. Issa, you may proceed.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am particularly happy that we are having this hearing today

because I believe Mr. Chairman and I think former Mayor Michael

Turner who is also going to be participating here today would agree

that there are right ways and wrong ways to do it.

I think it is very insightful for us, even though we don’t have

prime jurisdiction, through our granting of tax-exempt status for

these projects, federally tax-exempt status, to evaluate whether

they should be done under the conditions they presently are. We

have individuals from the IRS and other bond officials that will be

testifying later.

I think that very much it is going to cause us to look at the good,

the bad and, as I heard today, in many cases what you would say

would be the ugly.

I have the privilege, though, of representing the city of San

Diego, and I have firsthand knowledge of the economic boom that

resulted from our newly built baseball park, PETCO Park, which

is the home of the National League West Champions, the San

Diego Padres. Our story was different than the ones I have heard

in your cities. In November 1998, over 60 percent of San Diego’s

voters approved Proposition C. The MOU between the Padres and

the city of San Diego and the City Center Development was the

only legislative action required for the baseball park.

We went through more than 5 years, though, of litigation by one

after another individual, some of them particularly notable being

landowners of a warehouse district, a district that didn’t have individuals living there and by most people’s standards, even though

it was a downtown distance within walking distance of our finest

oceanfront area, was in fact blighted. The owners did not say they

didn’t want to sell. They simply said they wanted to be made a lot

more for warehouse districts. They were paid a lot more than

would be based on the tax rolls in that district, a lot more.

After the successful condemnation and 5 years of litigation,

PETCO Park was built in what had once been a blighted warehouse district.

Today, we have 7,385 residential units in that district. These are

units of choice. These are expensive units. These are units that

range up into the multimillion dollar range, and these are units

that were 100 percent sold because San Diego became revitalized

around this project. This project was not squeezed in. It was designed from the ground up.

We also have added 747 new hotel rooms, again over 90 percent

filled.

The direct documentable economic value is $3.73 billion of property tax evaluation increase. Now, in California, you just take 1

percent of that or $37 million and you would get the direct property

tax revenue increases. Needless to say, we are talking in multiples

of that when you look at our revenues from sales tax and others.

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Quite candidly, if baseball players were required to be residents

of the State of their home team, it wouldn’t help you in Washington, but in California that would add roughly 10 percent of their

often high salaries to the economic revenue.

I am proud to say that John Moore, the owner of the Padres,

does contribute heavily to local baseball and softball. He has built

every single year a new, at his cost, baseball facility for the youth

around the city and the county and continues to give back and give

heavily.

We were fortunate. We had a multi-billionaire who moved to San

Diego and bought a team that was in trouble and has invested net

in it and in the redevelopment, from day one, said that he wanted

that to be a redevelopment that was a positive for the city.

It is an unusual story to tell, but I wanted it told because as I

hear with more than little bit of dismay how cities can go wrong,

I also want all of us to realize that it can be done right and hopefully will be done right in the future perhaps because of tax policies

that we work on here today.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you and yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Darrell E. Issa follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman.

This committee will take a 15 minute recess, at which time we

will return to question the witnesses. Thank you.

[Recess.]

Mr. KUCINICH. This is a hearing of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee. I am Congressman Dennis Kucinich from Cleveland,

OH, the chairman of the subcommittee.

The title of our hearing today is, ‘‘Build It and They Will Come:

Do Taxpayer-Financed Sports Stadiums, Convention Centers and

Hotels Deliver as Promised for America’s Cities?’’

We have heard from our first panel, and now we are going to

have questions. I am going to have at least one question for every

witness, and I would like to ask each of you the same question, and

I ask for a brief response. We will start with Ms. Hogi.

Does building a new sports stadium bring growth, revitalization

or prosperity to the city and neighborhoods?

Ms. HOGI. I would answer no, not in the way that it was done

to Yankee Stadium. Were there more involvement with the community who had great suggestions of how to fashion this new stadium,

it would have involved a big infusion of economic growth to the

area.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Rashid.

Mr. RASHID. I would say that even in cases where it appears that

a stadium hasn’t done any harm, it is rare that if you really look

at the numbers, it could do any good. There are so many more important things that we can do as cities and as a society to serve

our people with public money, that there really is very little excuse

for wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on publicly funded stadiums.

Mr. KUCINICH. Council President Licata.

Mr. LICATA. I have not seen any visible evidence that the neighborhoods that the stadiums have been located in have benefited in

any significant or even marginal way, and as I pointed out in our

appendix 2, we do know that our public safety costs have gone up.

Mr. KUCINICH. I have another question. I would like to ask each

of you to answer, and I would ask again for you to make your response brief.

What, in your opinion, motivates team owners to seek public financing for new stadium construction? Ms. Hogi.

Ms. HOGI. In a word, greed.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Rashid.

Mr. RASHID. I would say that it is a tremendous opportunity for

private business to increase its profits and the value of its business

by shifting the costs of its physical plant onto the public, and then

basically they charge. The public incurs the risks, and the private

owner takes all the benefits.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Licata.

Mr. LICATA. Basically, they see the opportunity to shift the risk

to the public sector. So, therefore, their profit margin is protected,

and they have a better opportunity for running a more profitable

team.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK, I want to thank this panel for its participation.

I want to ask does Ms. Watson have any questions of this panel.

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you all for coming.

I just want to add a comment. I think this is a very significant

question at this point. How do we benefit in our cities?

I am from Los Angeles and represent Los Angeles, Hollywood as

well, and I just want to say that we have been trying to get a football team in our coliseum. Well, all of them want the proceeds from

parking. I just want to know if that is the case as well. The proceeds from parking go to support the School of Science and Math

that we have built in that complex. And so, we have, not for years,

had a team. I find that they want everything within the surrounding area.

We are just lucky in that area because we have the University

of Southern California that is well endowed and receives a lot of

grants for research. We are trying to really build the heart of South

Central, and that is where it is.

In New York, are all of you New York? Oh, well, in your cities,

are you finding same thing? If they do come in, it will benefit them

and they pay tremendous wages to their players and all, but it

doesn’t necessarily build a community. I would like to have a comment from you.

Mr. LICATA. Well, I can kick off and say that specifically regarding parking in both instances, the stadiums and now basketball

arena, the parking revenue used to go to the city which we use for

general funds which is basically for everything. When they move

in, they want the revenue from the parking, so that is a pattern

we have seen in our city.

Mr. RASHID. I would say that overall what happens when a new

stadium is built in Detroit in particular, the whole idea, part of the

plan of building the stadium was so that the owner could absorb

revenue-generating activities that were formerly controlled by

smaller independent business people as well as churches and programs that did it for fundraising, used parking revenues and other

revenues for fundraising as ways of supplementing their funds.

These were programs, for example, for young women in trouble or

for churches that were running soup kitchens.

So, basically, what happened when we moved to a new stadium

was that now the owner controls all of that parking. And those activities don’t have that same advantage. It is a net loss.

Ms. HOGI. My colleague on the next panel, Mr. deMause, would

be more proficient in that area than I. I can say that the parking

garages are operated by private vendors in New York. Other than

the regular business tax, I don’t see how it benefits the area.

The one big parking garage right now is closed to the community

on non-game days. So, essentially, it sits fallow. The four new garages that are scheduled to be built are being built for the fans,

the spectators, not for the community. So it is not even a yearround revenue. As a matter of fact, they have not found a private

developer yet to build those parks.

Mr. KUCINICH. The gentlelady’s time is expired.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. HOGI. OK.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the witness for her testimony.

We now are going to have questions from Mr. Souder.

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Before we get to Mr. Souder, I just want to say that, without objection, at the conclusion of panel one in deference to the inevitable

time constraints of the IRS, we are going to have a change in panel

two. We are going to be hearing from Dennis Zimmerman, Brad

Humphreys and then the IRS in panel three. In deference to the

minority, we are going to move up the order of testimony on panel

four to hear from the witness from Dayton. Without objection, so

ordered.

Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I am sorry I missed the testimony. I

was scrambling through here to try to catch up a little bit. I just

had a couple of basic questions and let me put a couple together

and then I would be interested to hear your responses.

Do you believe that it is always a bad idea or do you believe that

bad deals were cut?

In other words, in St. Louis, my understanding is when they did

the redevelopment there, they worked because some of it had public housing in it. They worked some agreements with the public

housing groups, and they had some of the low income housing restored which they would have not been able to do had they not

done the stadiums.

So I am wondering even like in the case of Seattle and Detroit

or, for that matter, New York, a second question rises, and that is

this intangible because I share your concerns that it seems like the

owners of the teams particularly when they resell and make horrendous amounts of money and they sell lots of food in the stadium, control some of it. I share a lot of those concerns.

At the same time, there are some intangibles in downtown development like core city image. Detroit, for example, had the Tigers.

It is one thing to say keep the historic structure. It is another thing

what if they had moved up to Pontiac or out to the suburbs. What

if, in Seattle, they had gone out into the suburbs? What about if,

in New York, they went out even further into Long Island?

In fact, one of the intangibles that you get here is that suburbanites will come into the urban center. It helps the image of the city.

Then last with this same kind of intangible question, the fact

that some cities didn’t get the return that they thought, is that related to other things that weren’t in control and was it, in fact, a

zero sum game that the money wasn’t put in crime, the money

wasn’t put in downtown development?

Or, for example, in downtown Detroit, is the problem so systemic

that no matter what is done? From what I can tell there has been

some change. The casinos may, unfortunately be more a part of it

than the sports. I would be interested in some comments.

Mr. LICATA. Why don’t we just go down the row? Regarding the

question, could some projects be more successful than others depending on what the mixture, you would have to investigate that

city by city and process by process.

I can say that in our situation with the professional basketball

team, the citizens voted over 70 percent to say that yes, we will put

money in. We just want a fair rate of return, looking at, say, a percent of what we earn on Federal bonds, pretty meager, and the

public turned it down. So I think the public wants something very

visible, and they want a good fair return.

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On the image, that is almost immeasurable. But I can say that

in Seattle’s case vis-a-vis the city of Vancouver, BC, who we compete with on a image-Pacific-international basis, they do not have

the kind of professional teams we have. We are fighting for them

every day for business, so it doesn’t seem to give us any advantage

over them.

Mr. RASHID. I think that this is a false dilemma. We are not really, if you really want to look at what a project will do, at the beginning of a project, you have an opportunity to examine, do a full

independent cost-benefit analysis. If we are going to spend this

money, is this the best possible use? That is an opportunity for a

community to really look at what is the best possibility.

From an independent analysis, if that happens and if stadiums

come up there at the top of the list, then fine, make sure that happens. Make sure that works.

But you know there are all kinds of wonderful places in the

United States to live that don’t have professional sports. It is not

like my life as a Detroiter is really directly hit by professional

sports. If it were, we have had the World Series, the All-Star Game

and the Super Bowl in the last 2 years, and we have terrible budget deficits. Nothing has happened to touch the people of Detroit as

a result of having professional sports.

We have had the top events and all of the television exposure.

Is your image of Detroit really significantly improved by having

those kinds of events and that kind of exposure? You can’t eat

image.

Mr. SOUDER. Winning the World Series might.

Ms. HOGI. I believe Mr. Rashid in that, and New York is unique.

Yankee Stadium is only used for Yankees games. During off season, it is an economic dead zone not just to the community, but

nothing happens there. Nothing happens. We are just looking at

closed garages and an empty stadium.

Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman’s time is expired.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I

want to thank you for calling this important hearing.

In my congressional district, I live in Chicago. We have actually

built three complexes in the last several years, all in my district.

In the 1980’s, what is now Cellular Field, Sox Park, the home of

the Bulls, the stadium where the championships were won and a

new McCormick Place.

In each instance, there were proposals that community residents

and civic groups were not in favor of. For example, the first one at

Sox Stadium or Cellular Field, there was great fear that Wentworth Gardens, a public housing development, would be totally

wiped out. However, as a result of community interaction and action and protest and demonstration and negotiation, Wentworth

was left intact. Lots of negotiation took place around the building

of the stadium and concessions were made.

My question is how impactful have community protests or community positions been in each one of the instances in which you

have been involved?

Ms. HOGI. I would like to go first on this one because in our case,

we have a time line that shows how quickly our parks were alienVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:07 Dec 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38037.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ated before the community knew about it. There was no community

involvement. Our previous borough president had a plan for a Yankee Village that included a new or renovated stadium, numerous

business ventures that no one even looked at. So had we had the

chance to interact, we could have provided a lot of good input that

would have minimized the opposition to that project.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Yes.

Mr. RASHID. We appeared to have some success in delaying a stadium project over time, and in fact the mayor of Detroit once said

that we had helped by not getting a bad stadium project built.

However, in retrospect, I think that no matter how much we did,

the fact that we now have two stadiums in downtown Detroit absorbing huge amounts of public revenue or public resources shows

that we really didn’t have tremendous effect and that when the

powerful interests wanted to collaborate on a stadium project got

together, it really didn’t matter how much the citizens could do. The citizens really, in our final campaign, we had about $25,000 to run against a $600,000 or more public relations campaign. There

was no way we could effectively get our word out against that.

Mr. LICATA. To the extent that communities can get involved,

then the stadiums or arenas that are built will probably include

some amenities to the immediate communities in that vicinity of

those institutions, but they will not, in the long run, be able to

forestall or stop the stadiums or arenas from being built.

Generally, what I have seen is that those in favor of those construction projects cherry-pick the leaders of what they want to represent the various communities. So it is I don’t want to say a

stacked deck, but it is definitely marked.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Let me just ask finally, are you opposed

to public financing in part or do you think that there is room for

public-private partnerships in the building of these kinds of facilities?

Ms. HOGI. Public-private partnerships, definitely.

Mr. RASHID. I think that each project has to be looked at very

carefully and really independently analyzed, and that is the problem. Right now, there is no independent analysis. I think if there

were, we would see considerably fewer publicly funded stadiums

and a lot more money from the private sector in those projects.

What happens now is there is a real interest. There is a whole

set of powerful interests that can control the debate. What really

needs to happen and where I think Federal enforcement would be

very valuable is in establishing requirements that there be real

solid and verifiable analysis for each project, and that is not done.

Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman’s time is expired.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thanks, Mr. Davis.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In my opening statements, I think I made it clear that San Diego

views itself as an exception, not an exception to lawsuits that tried

to delay, perhaps an exception in that many of the people who were

involved in the suit simply wanted more money for a warehouse

than they had paid for it a few years earlier which sounds like

many of your opening statements and the chairman’s opening

statements about professional sports teams. So I think when there

is an opportunity, there is no question. There are people who are

opportunists.

But for this committee, even though we don’t have the prime jurisdiction over taxes to say the least, a lot of what we have in Congress is tax authority, the ability to evaluate and to tighten up the

standards or, candidly, loosen the standards on what gets tax-exempt bonds which, as you all know, makes a big difference in

whether a city will go forward. If we don’t grant a tax-exempt bond

for a new sewer system, it increases the price of the sewer system.

If we do provide tax-exempt status for a baseball park, it reduces

the cost through a Federal subsidy.

For each of you who have both obviously the public participation

at the city level but the Federal Government contributed to these

projects, what conditions would you say we should look at insisting

on before we grant the tax-exempt category which is our primary

authority here in Congress for these projects?

In other words, when we say to a city, county or State, yes or

no, we will grant, what should these projects have to do in your

opinions?

Mr. LICATA. I will kick off.

I think the bottom line is that the public wants to be put in the

same position as the business investors. They want a fair rate of

return. If there is some way that the Federal Government can say

that in order to get tax-exempt status on these bonds, we have to

see a definable, measurable benefit to the public.

I am not sure how you go about doing that, but I think that

would certainly go a long way to solving this problem.

Mr. ISSA. Would the first step be a positive tax revenue to at

least a combination of city, State and Federal Government?

Mr. LICATA. That would be a good first step.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Rashid.

Mr. RASHID. I am not certainly an expert in this.

Mr. ISSA. Nor are we; we just got elected to do it. [Laughter.]

Mr. RASHID. I do believe that every project has to be absolutely

independently verified. What happens in projects, the way they are

sold both to local politicians and to the public is by creating studies

that ignore most of the information that is relevant to the project.

I would insist that in doing, in creating these studies and providing

this analysis, that it be done independently, that it be verified

independently and that alternative uses for moneys for these

projects be a part of whatever study is done, and that is not done.

I also think that the campaigns that are used to sell these

projects have to be looked at carefully. There is almost a need for

some kind of campaign finance reform at the local level in the way

that those projects and those campaigns are funded.

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Mr. KUCINICH. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. ISSA. I would be happy to yield to the chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. The witness raised a point which I think may be

worth the committee looking at as a followup, and that is the campaigns to pass these issues. What do they promise? It might be interesting to collect information from all the cities we are hearing

from plus others to see how the promises correspond to the reality.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. ISSA. That is excellent.

I might mention that we do have two other pieces of jurisdiction

for the final answers before my time expires. One is we do have

campaign finance. We could consider that if it lobbies for what

would ultimately be tax-exempt bonds, that we could put it under

the Federal limit of $2,300 rather than, in some States, unlimited,

and that would be our jurisdiction.

Last but not least, you might remember that we, in the previous

Congress, had professional sports up here to talk about steroids.

We do have the jurisdiction, and perhaps the chairman would consider having as a followup to this, professional sports teams talking

about this growing competition that makes these projects so expensive because I think you have victimized in your local cities in

many of the things you have said.

But we also have the concern that there is a race to go higher

and higher. Are we racing to where your cities will lose what you

have unless, as you said, ante up another $800 million?

I want to leave time for you to answer on any other ideas that

would help us here on the dais.

Ms. HOGI. The project should benefit all. As I said, Yankee Stadium is an economic dead zone during off season. So I don’t think

my taxes should go to supplement this team that can’t benefit me

year-round.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman. It may be, Mr. Issa, that

tax-exempt financing for these sports projects may be a financial

equivalent of steroids.

So, let us continue. Mr. Tierney, do you have any questions?

Mr. TIERNEY. No, I have no questions, Mr. Chairman. I thank

the witnesses for testifying and yield back.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank Mr. Tierney.

We will all thank the witnesses for their appearances. You are

now excused, and we will call the second panel forward consisting

of Brad Humphreys and Dennis Zimmerman.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Let the record show that the witnesses answered

in the affirmative.

Dr. Brad Humphreys is an economist who teaches at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research interests in sports

economics include the economic impact of professional sports on

urban economics. His most recent research on the economic impact

of professional sports teams is entitled, ‘‘Caught Stealing: Debunking the Economic Case for D.C. Baseball,’’ and this was published

by the Cato Institute.

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Mr. Dennis Zimmerman is the director of projects at the American Tax Policy Institute. The American Tax Policy Institute’s primary purpose is to promote and facilitate non-partisan scholarly research analysis and discussion of U.S. Federal, State and local tax

policy issues. Formerly, Mr. Zimmerman was an analyst with the

CRS for 21 years and with the CBO, Congressional Budget Office,

for 7 years.

Mr. Zimmerman’s published work includes, ‘‘Private Use of TaxExempt Bonds: Controlling Public Subsidy of Private Activity.’’

I want to thank the gentlemen for being here.

Mr. Humphreys, you may proceed with your testimony.

I would ask the witnesses to limit your testimony to 5 minutes.

Anything that is not spoken will, of course, be included in the complete record of the committee. Thank you.

STATEMENTS OF DR. BRAD HUMPHREYS, ECONOMIST, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, CHAMPAIGN,

IL; AND DENNIS ZIMMERMAN, DIRECTOR OF PROJECTS,

AMERICAN TAX POLICY INSTITUTE, FALLS CHURCH, VA

STATEMENT OF DR. BRAD HUMPHREYS

Mr. HUMPHREYS. Thank you very much for the opportunity to

testify here, Chairman Kucinich and other committee members.

I am an economist who does research on the economic impact of

professional sports teams and facilities on the local economy. I

have, in my own research, gone back and looked at the economic

performance of every city in the United States that had a professional football, basketball or baseball franchise from 1970 until the

present, looking for evidence that professional sports are somehow

engines of economic development in cities, and I have not found

any evidence whatsoever suggesting that professional sports stadiums create jobs, raise income or raise local tax revenues.

There is no doubt in my mind that professional sports stadiums

concentrate economic activity in the area approximate to those facilities, but we need to look at the entire economy of cities and not

just what is going on within 2 miles of a professional sports stadium. When we look at the entire cities’ economies, there is just

no evidence supporting the idea that professional sports facilities

are engines of economic growth.

So, over the last 15 years, we have subsidized construction only

of professional sports facilities by about $15 billion in inflation adjusted terms.

Why do we continue to subsidize that construction with Government money? Well, it is undeniable that professional sports provide

some non-economic benefits to communities: a sense of community,

world class city status, these sorts of things. We hear this all the

time, and that is important. It might be that could justify our subsidies, but I want to point out that the evidence of economic benefit

is just not there.

There is a second reason that we might still continue to subsidize

professional sports facility construction, and that is the subsidies

are the product of a long negotiation between a number of people:

taxpayers, local politicians, the teams, people like that. We have

the Congress, by extending special anti-trust status to professional

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sports leagues, has given the team owners the upper hand in that

process. A team owner can always threaten to leave for another

market which is there because sports leagues have this anti-trust

protection that you, the Congress, have given them.

I urge you to think about and consider carefully whether or not

we should extend this anti-trust protection to sports leagues so

that they can extract these subsidies from local governments because I think this is a root cause of a lot of these problems of subsidizing sports facilities that don’t provide economic benefits.

I also want to point out for people who are trying to decide on

these subsidies, that there are two types of evidence that we have

about what the economic impact of professional sports facilities are.

One are these promotional studies or economic impact studies that

are generates by proponents of these subsidies, and they typically

find huge economic benefits. This other type of evidence that we

have is scholarly, peer-reviewed academic research, the kind that

I do.

Often in the court of public opinion, these two types of evidence

are treated equally, and I would argue that is a very bad public

policy idea, to treat them equally.

One of the previous panelists said that we need to have independent oversight to see if these benefits ever turn up. That is

what peer-reviewed academic research is. It goes through the peer

review process.

We don’t make policy about drugs and things like that just based

on what pharmaceutical companies say. We have research that is

peer-reviewed, that tells us about those things. We should have the

same sort of standards when we are considering whether or not

there is economic benefit to be gained from professional sports.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Humphreys follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Humphreys.

Mr. Zimmerman.

STATEMENT OF DENNIS ZIMMERMAN

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Mr. Chairman, ranking member and members,

thank you for this opportunity to appear before the committee. I

have submitted written testimony for the record.

Professional sports stadiums have been subjected to three different sets of tax-exempt bond rules since 1968. Until 1968, most

stadiums were financed with tax-exempt industrial development

bonds, with debt service paid primarily from stadium related revenue even though they also could be financed with governmental

bonds whose debt service was paid by local taxpayers.

In 1986, stadiums were removed from the list of private activities

that could use industrial development bonds which the 1986 act renamed private activity bonds. Since local taxpayers were expected

to be reluctant to use general obligation debt to pay for stadium

debt service, stadium bonds would wither. Unfortunately, that expectation was overwhelmed by the combination of the monopoly

power of professional sports leagues that maintains excess demand

for franchises and stadium proponents’ use of pseudo-economic

studies showing that stadiums pay for themselves.

Then in 2006, the Internal Revenue Service issued a letter ruling

that effectively restores private activity bond financing of stadiums.

It reclassified stadium-related revenue as general taxes called payments in lieu of taxes, PILOTs, converting private activity bonds

into governmental bonds.

Whether the PILOT ruling is good or bad policy depends on the

policy goal one is trying to achieve. If the goal is to eliminate Federal subsidy of professional sports stadiums, it is poor policy. Local

taxpayer resistance to publicly financed stadiums is reduced because PILOTs substitute stadium-related revenue for general taxes

paid by local taxpayers.

Even worse, renaming business-related revenue as PILOTs

might open the door for widespread tax-exempt governmental bond

financing of private investment projects not currently eligible for

private activity bond financing. It invites local elected officials to

become commercial bankers.

Senator Daniel Moynihan tried to eliminate tax-exempt stadium

financing more directly in 1996 with the Stop Tax-Exempt Arena

Debt Issuance Act [STADIA]. If the 10 percent security interest

test for stadiums is eliminated, in other words, wiped off the books,

professional sports stadiums would always be classified as taxable

private activity bonds because they use more than 10 percent of the

bond proceeds. Such a prohibition is also good economic policy because the Federal taxpayer receives no benefit from a bond-financed stadium.

The budget’s effect on jobs and tax revenue is determined by the

budget resolution. What that money is spent on makes little difference unless it is for a spending program that reduces the natural rate of unemployment such as job training. These taxes and

bonds do not accomplish that objective.

In contrast to eliminating the Federal subsidy, one’s objective

might be to implement the benefit principle of taxation that reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:07 Dec 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00079 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38037.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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quires those who receive the benefit to pay its cost. PILOTs might

be beneficial. PILOTs would allow stadium-related revenue to be

used to be pay debt service and would reduce the pressure to finance stadiums with general revenue. Stadium-related revenue is

generally paid by those receiving direct benefits from the stadiums

where as general taxes such as income, property and sales taxes

are poorly related to stadium usage and receipt of benefits. The

costs and benefits of the dominant political coalition that promotes

the stadium would be better balanced, thereby rationalizing prices

and reducing over-investment.

But the PILOT policy has a problem. As mentioned above, it

might lead to a significant conversion of taxable private activity

bonds and to tax-exempt Government bonds, therefore increasing

revenue loss.

A three step compromise is available that could advance both

policy objectives.

First, add stadiums to the list of private activities eligible for

tax-exempt financing. That would encourage local governments to

use the benefit principle of taxation to finance the stadiums.

Second, subject stadium bonds to the private activity bond volume cap. That would require stadium projects to compete for scarce

volume cap with other eligible private activities such as mortgage

revenue bonds and would minimize the Federal revenue loss.

Third, wipe the PILOT precedent off the books. That would prevent its indiscriminate application to a broad range of private activities and control elected officials’ role of commercial banker.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Zimmerman follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. I thank Mr. Zimmerman.

We are going to go to questions in the second, and at the conclusion of that, we will go to the third panel of the Internal Revenue

Service.

Dennis Zimmerman, you are a former Congressional Research

Service and CBO analyst, is that correct?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. In your opinion, what is the public purpose fulfilled by tax-exempt financing of the construction of Yankee Stadium?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Well, if you go by the structure of the bond

rules prior to the PILOT, it would not have been allowed. In general, since these things provide no Federal benefit, no benefit to

Federal taxpayers, it is not clear why one would want to subsidize

these things.

Mr. KUCINICH. So are you saying then that it is inconsistent with

the law’s treatment of public financing for sports stadiums?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Yes, prior to the PILOTs act, they would have

been classified as private activity bonds which would have been

taxable.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Zimmerman, has the IRS in its rulings for

the Yankees and the Mets adhered to the meaning and intent of

the law?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. The meaning and intent of the law is sort of in

the eye of the beholder frequently. As I read the law, prior to the

PILOTs ruling, it is not consistent. These would have been counted

as stadium-related revenues, they would have violated the 10 percent rule, and they would have not have been eligible for tax-exempt status.

Mr. KUCINICH. Now in your testimony, you assert that the IRS

proposed rulemaking, which will be discussed in our next panel,

creates a way around the restriction on tax-exempt private activity

bonds for use in sports stadium construction, is that right?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. So, in your opinion, how would you characterize

the impact of the IRS rulemaking on the 1986 law with respect to

public financing of sports stadium construction?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. It circumvents what the 1986 tax act rules say

because it reclassifies stadium-related revenue which clearly

should be counted against the 10 percent security interest test. It

reclassified it as generally applicable taxes and converted these

things from private activity bonds which are taxable into governmental bonds which are tax-exempt.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank Mr. Zimmerman.

Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to followup on each of your opening statements.

Dr. Humphreys, I am a little confused on one thing. Your testimony was that this is sort of a zero sum game, that if it wasn’t

spent in the downtown area in San Diego, Washington, Detroit,

Chicago, wherever, it would be spent in the suburbs. Isn’t that the

nature of redevelopment though? Isn’t that what center city

projects do?

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I am a Clevelander, the same as the chairman. Isn’t it, in fact,

the problem in Cleveland is my brother in Shaker Heights, he is

doing a little better, and by the time you get to Beechwood, they

are doing just fine while Cleveland itself, a great city, has a constant problem of converting from the river and lakefront of the

steel and coal era into a desirable place?

Why in the world, economically, wouldn’t you consider that shifting from, if you will, the place where there is plenty of money to

the place where there isn’t enough money and as a result not

enough money to run the Cleveland City Schools as an economic

benefit and give full credit to that, not saying that it changes your

model in any way except how can you not give credit for that shift?

Mr. HUMPHREYS. Well, I don’t understand why we should spend

hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize a downtown business

to attract entertainment spending. Why is it that a business owner

somewhere in the suburbs, who is losing customers, shouldn’t be

extremely upset at us using public dollars to subsidize a competitor

for him to move that business elsewhere?

I mean I think that long run economic growth is related to fundamental factors like worker productivity and education and things

like that.

Mr. ISSA. OK, I get it. You like the macro, and I like the micro.

It is tomato-tomato. I guess I have a difference of opinion, having

been to Jacobs Field, having been to the Rock and Roll Hall of

Fame and so on, that it is worth for the overall benefit of the city

not to have a blighted area, crime-ridden, with kids who don’t have

enough money to go to school, but maybe I am wrong on some of

these counts.

Mr. Zimmerman, coming over to you.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Could I comment on the question?

Mr. ISSA. Please, in my limited time, I would love to hear.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. OK, the one other aspect of this, of the question

is I can see why one can conceive of that as being a benefit for the

local and maybe the State taxpayers. It is not clear to me why that

is a benefit to the Federal taxpayers.

Mr. ISSA. No, no. I understand.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. And therefore why the interest in subsidies.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, and that follows up on what I was going

to ask you.

You have held this opinion since at least 1986 when you testified

before Congress. So this opinion that you gave us here today is not

new. This has been consistent since when you testified in 1986

when Congress removed stadiums from the list of activities, and

that is good because it is nice once in a while to have people who

don’t change their opinions from one election to another, not that

this would happen in this town.

But I have to get back to in your opinion, spreading it beyond

baseball, I figured we would take on apple pie, baseball and mother. We should shift to a broader arena. Museums or how about the

Cleveland Symphony, should it enjoy any tax benefits such as the

fact that contributions to the symphony are tax-exempt or tax free?

They are donations.

Now that is where rich people go, right, normally to the symphony and the opera and so on?

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Mr. ZIMMERMAN. That is right.

Mr. ISSA. Isn’t there, in fact, to a certain extent, when you look

at the economic hierarchy, if you are going to take away stadiums—and I use stadiums as a euphemism for baseball or football

or sports in general—then don’t you have to treat equally by taking

away the symphony, the museums, the opera?

Is one culture more valuable to another and isn’t your stand

against stadiums, which are necessary if you are going to have professional baseball, inconsistent unless you are also calling on elimination of similar treatment for any and all redevelopments but particularly if they involve the other alternatives to what people would

like to do with maybe less limited resources?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. All these things, of course, have some value in

terms of intangible benefits. But, no, I don’t think they are comparable, and they are not comparable because these stadiums are

private, privately owned business operations.——

Mr. ISSA. OK, well, I want to followup. I am on a yellow. I am

on a yellow light.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN [continuing]. Whereas museums and cultural opportunities are non-profit organizations.

Mr. ISSA. Well, no. Let me go back again.

What if a city wants to build a stadium and own it like they

build a symphony facility and they build museums and own them?

Now, first of all, a lot of symphonies and museums are not publicly

owned, but notwithstanding that, is your point public ownership

versus private or, in fact, when we build facilities for other cultural

and athletic and other activities, don’t they all fit into the same

gambit?

If we are going to take on baseball, motherhood and apple pie,

and I am happy to do it, don’t we have to take on all levels of these

kinds of activities?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. No. Again, I think the distinction is in the instance where these things are privately owned, then essentially

what is happening is you are providing windfall gains to the owners. That is the example of the Texas Rangers stadium. Most of the

benefits of the Federal tax subsidy ended up increasing the capital

value and went into the pockets of the owners whereas whether it

is a publicly owned symphony or a non-profit owned symphony,

there are non-distribution constraints and unless there is corruption present, the value of these Federal tax benefits are not being

absorbed into a higher rate of return for the private owners.

Mr. ISSA. I guess I missed something at the Who concert the

other day, but please, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman’s time is expired.

I would just like to interject here, and that is that I appreciate

the gentleman’s interest in the city of Cleveland, his home city—

we miss you—and that the economy of San Diego may be a little

bit different than the economy of the city of Cleveland where we

have the highest poverty level despite spending close to $1 billion

for these tax supported facilities.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I was a little amused to listen to my

colleague, Mr. Issa, make a great argument for the redistribution

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of wealth from the suburb into the urban area which was sort of

interesting.

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentleman join in that with me? You know

we could work on this together. You just have to take on the big

structures everywhere on this.

Mr. KUCINICH. You can address your remarks through the Chair.

Continue.

Mr. TIERNEY. Reclaiming my time, I am glad you made the distinctions in some of your remarks about the nature of public policy

for non-profit institutions versus those that are going to get private

gain from a tax break on the Federal Government. Whether or not

the city holds the stadium or not, the individual that is running

the ball teams in there is still going to make a considerable profit

because it was built. I don’t know whether that is what we want

our public policy to lean toward.

Can I concentrate back? There are two things I want to do. I

want to talk a little bit about the 10 percent rule. Mr. Zimmerman,

will you explain that to those that might not fully understand

every little bit, every little detail?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Right, bonds are taxable or tax-exempt depending upon two tests. One is whether more than 10 percent of the

bond proceeds are used by a private business, and the second is

whether more than 10 percent of the debt service is secured by

property used in the trade and business.

Mr. TIERNEY. Either one of those things would exclude you being

able to be exempt?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Right, you have to fail. You have to exceed the

10 percent for both of those. So for a stadium, obviously more than

10 percent of the bond proceeds are being used by a private entity.

So the question when they cannot be used with private activity

bonds is can you structure the deal so that no more than 10 percent of the debt service is paid for by stadium-related revenue?

That is the property being used in the trade or business.

The 1986 act basically said if you don’t satisfy that 10 percent

security interest test, then the only way, then you can’t issue a stadium bond. So it would have to essentially be a governmental bond

which forces you to finance it with general tax revenues.

Mr. TIERNEY. My question, I guess, would be the IRS rulemaking

letter, was that an interpretation or a change in law?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Well, I am not a lawyer. I can only tell you

what the effect was.

Mr. TIERNEY. The effect was to do the reverse of what we

thought the statute did.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. The effect was it converted what, absent the PILOTs ruling, would have been considered stadium-related revenue,

and——

Mr. TIERNEY. I don’t want to cut into you, but it just sounds to

me like it was created out of thin air.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN [continuing]. Therefore would have classified it

as a taxable private activity bond. It would not have been eligible

for tax-exempt financing.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

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Would each of you expound a little bit on the monopoly issue

here, how that affects the situation because both of you mentioned

it in the course of your remarks?

What I think is important to note is what about the anti-trust

issue on this, how would that change things? Do you think it is

wise to continue the anti-trust exemptions and how might we

change them and what would be the effect if we did?

Mr. HUMPHREYS. Well, the effect of the anti-trust ruling is that

leagues restrict the number of franchises that there are. I mean

ask Ms. Watson why there is no NFL franchise in Los Angeles. The

reason is that they are operating as a monopoly or a cartel and

they want to keep that market open so that if another team wants

to threaten to move if they don’t get a new stadium built, then they

have that option to move. So that is restriction.

Why are they allowed to do that? Well, because they enjoy some

anti-trust protection.

If that was removed, there would be an NFL franchise in Los Angeles instantaneously almost because it is clearly going to support

an NFL franchise. So this just gives. As team owners and local

politicians bargain over subsidies, it gives the owners the ultimate

threat and the ultimate power in the process, and that is how they

get the subsidies as I see it. So I don’t know.

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Effectively, when you have a monopoly, you

maintain excess demand, and it is that excess demand which creates the need for local governments to compete to get franchises.

Mr. TIERNEY. Can either of you make a case?

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. And how do they compete? They compete with

larger and larger subsidies of the capital costs of the franchises.

Mr. TIERNEY. Can either of you make a case for continuing the

anti-trust exemptions?

OK, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank Mr. Tierney.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding

this hearing. I greatly appreciate your look into this issue, having

shared with you the background of having been a former mayor

and having been a mayor at a time when our city undertook the

construction of a Minor League Baseball stadium which had a huge

effect on transforming out downtown.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, so many times because of our background, we agree upon the issues that are identified but not necessarily on the specific resolution of those issues.

I want to thank you for panel one because the most important

thing that we have in local government are people who get involved

and who are activists to hold Government accountable and to look

at where their taxpayer funds are going and what the direction and

the vision of the community should be. It is not always that we will

all agree, but if we don’t have people at the table who are willing

to dive into the facts and the details and hold the community accountable for what they are undertaking, you can get bad deals.

What is interesting in the information that we have today is

clearly there are some bad deals in stadiums—I have seen them in

our State—and there are also some really good deals.

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We had a really good deal in our community because we capped

our exposure and liability so the taxpayers had a limit at the

amount that they were investing in the stadium. Cost overruns

were to the team. Management of the construction was to the team.

When we entered into it as a community, we knew exactly what

the subsidy was going to be and what we expected the result of economic development in the area would also be.

Now, on the second panel, there are a couple of things that you

have said that I find very interesting. One is your description of

a monopoly with respect to anti-trust laws because what have you

just stated is actually what I believe is backward from the economic model is in monopoly. You say that we should get rid of the

anti-trust exemption because they are maintaining excess demand

and making local governments compete.

Well, the reality is if we took off the anti-trust exemption, you

wouldn’t have less stadiums. You would have more stadiums and

more teams and more communities endeavoring to do it. So it

would have the exact reverse impact of what you are arguing. You

would have more communities having access to teams and seeking

to undertake construction of teams for their communities.

Second, the issue of looking at the stadiums as an amenity and

the statement that has been made of a consensory conclusion that

has emerged from peer-reviewed literature, except for the fact that

the externalities that are not currently qualified and that appears

that residential property values may be higher in cities with sports

teams, but the conclusion starts with there is a consensus that they

are not an engine of economic growth.

There is a significant amount of peer literature that does show

that the amenities that a community has significantly impact economic development. Richard Florida, who, as you know, is the author of The Creative Class, goes into an incredible analysis. In one

article entitled, ‘‘The Economic Geography of Talent,’’ he actually

correlates a community’s success based upon their ability to attract

a highly educated, highly skilled, highly qualified, competitive work

force to the amenities in the community and indicates that the success level of a community is based upon the amenities that are provided and being able to attract people who have degrees and young

folk.

Interestingly enough, he has a little graph here that says Coolness Index, and it says Pittsburgh, Seattle, Atlanta, Denver, San

Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, all of which, I think we

could all in this room name their teams.

As an indication, it goes on to say that median housing values

are higher in those communities that have these amenities where

there is a coolness associated with attracting new talent, an item

that Dr. Humphreys, you indicated that it appears that residential

properties values may be higher in cities with sports teams.

I think it is very important that we distinguish a broad policy

such as do we provide a tax benefit to stadium construction? Do we

provide it, as Mr. Issa said, to other amenities and activities of a

community as a holistic approach to regional economic development?

It is not suburbs versus urban because the reality is the stadium

is an economic engine for suburbs also. You have no suburbs that

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exist without an urban core. It doesn’t happen. So you have to have

a regional approach to what are the amenities you are going to

have in a community, how you are going to use public funds for

those, and that is a local government discussion and a local government distinction.

My question for both of you is to go back to the issue that Mr.

Issa had raised of if you are going to say that stadiums.

Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman’s time is expired.

Mr. TURNER. Can I finish my question, Mr. Chairman? It is a

quick question.

Mr. KUCINICH. I will agree to that, but your time is expired. Go

ahead.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

If you are going to have a policy where you look at stadiums only

as being subsidized by the taxpayers, don’t you have to put on the

board all of the amenities that are used by other for profits such

as rock concerts and other types of venues that are considered

amenities that tend to attract that type of spirit or life that a city

points to for its identity?

Mr. KUCINICH. You can make your answers very brief.

Mr. HUMPHREYS. I don’t understand the question very well actually. We should consider? We should consider rock concerts as

amenities and subsidization?

Mr. TURNER. You have to have a venue, and certainly you are

not saying that the music community must sustain construction of

its own venue and/or they should not come into a community and

host an event.

Mr. HUMPHREYS. And where does it end? So we have to have restaurants too. Do we need to subsidize what restaurant construction

and other amenities like that? I mean some of those things are privately provided goods. If we are talking about subsidies, why is it

that we should, you know, I don’t know where that list of things

ends.

Apparently, you are in favor of subsidization of all sorts of construction projects.

Mr. TURNER. My point is should we include them all if we are

going to pick on one?

Mr. HUMPHREYS. No.

Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman’s time is expired.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Michael R. Turner follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank this panel for their testimony.

We are going to move to the third panel, the IRS. Testifying will

be Donald Korb, the Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service.

This is kind of a Cleveland reunion because Mr. Korb is a former

Cleveland area resident, a graduate of Brush High. We are very

proud of your success and your presence here.

But let us move quickly. I would ask, Mr. Korb, if you would remain standing.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Let the record show that the witness responded

in the affirmative.

Mr. Korb, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF DONALD KORB, CHIEF COUNSEL, INTERNAL

REVENUE SERVICE, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. KORB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Issa,

other members of the subcommittee.

I would suggest we had this hearing in the wrong place. We

probably should have held this hearing in Cleveland, so next time

we get together.

Mr. KUCINICH. We may have a followup, but for now we are in

Washington, and we are so happy to have you here.

Mr. KORB. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the courtesy of letting me

speak now and also the conversation we had the other day on the

timing.

Mr. KUCINICH. We understand your time constraints. You may

proceed.

Mr. KORB. I very much appreciate it.

I am the Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service, and the

Chief Counsel is the legal advisor to the Commissioner of the IRS

on all matters pertaining to the interpretation, administration and

enforcement of the tax law.

Before discussing some of the specific issues that are the focus

of this hearing, it is important for me to emphasize that although

the Office of Chief Counsel assists and advises the IRS in administering our Nation’s tax system, neither our office nor the IRS

itself develops proposals on tax policy or takes a position as part

of the legislative process. Questions on tax policy issues are better

addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury or the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy in the Treasury Department.

In the tax policy area, our role is limited to advising on administrative issues that may arise from proposed tax legislation.

Now, let me turn to the subject of this hearing. The Internal Revenue Code provides an exclusion from income for interest paid on

bonds issued by the State and local governments. Tax-exempt bond

financing plays an important role as a source of financing to State

and local governments for public infrastructure and other significant public projects. In essence, the interest income exclusion provides a Federal subsidy to enable State and local governments to

obtain low cost financing for traditional governmental functions

such as schools, roads, libraries and firehouses.

In addition to these types of projects, the Tax Code also permits

State and local governments to use tax-exempt financing to subsidize certain activities of private businesses. Here again, the State

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and local government may have a valid governmental purpose for

providing this subsidy. However, over time, Congress has put limits

on State and local governments subsidizing private business activities with tax-exempt bonds.

Currently, a bond that subsidizes a private business may not

benefit from the tax-exemption unless the proceeds of the bond are

used for certain specified purposes, and if you look on page 3 and

4 of my written testimony, you will see the list there.

As we have discussed this morning, there are two basic types of

tax-exempt bonds, what we call governmental bonds and what are

called private activity bonds. Bonds are classified as governmental

bonds if the proceeds are used to carry out governmental purposes

and the bonds are repaid from governmental funds. On the other

hand, bonds are classified as private activity bonds if, for example,

the bond-financed facility is to be used entirely by private parties

and the debt service on the bonds is paid from private sources.

The current private activity bond regime was enacted as part of

the tax reform of 1986 as discussed earlier and was designed to

limit the ability of State and local governments to act as conduit

issuers in financing projects for the use and benefit of private businesses.

Now, prior to the tax reform of 1986, as you know, stadiums and

convention centers were listed as eligible facilities that could be financed with tax-exempt private activity bonds. In 1986, however,

Congress eliminated these projects from the list and, at the same

time, tightened the private activity bond tests across the board.

This means, as discussed this morning, under current law, bonds

that finance stadiums and convention centers now must be governmental bonds to be tax-exempt.

Consequently, if a State and local government wants to issue taxexempt governmental bonds to finance a stadium that a professional sports team would use, it can do so provided that the issuer,

the State or local government, receives no private payments from

the team or other private parties for use of the stadium that in the

aggregate exceeds generally 10 percent of the bonds, of the debt

service on the bonds.

Therefore, even if the bonds finance a project that is 100 percent

used for private business use, that private business use will not

cause the bonds to be private activity bonds so long as the issuer

pays the debt service on the bonds with either its general governmental funds or generally applicable taxes, both of which are not

treated as private payments.

So now, let us talk about what we mean by the concept of generally applicable taxes. Congress indicated in the legislative history

of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 that revenues from generally applicable taxes should not be treated as private payments for the purpose of the private payments test.

In 1997, the Clinton Treasury Department provided regulatory

guidance on the definition of what are generally applicable taxes

for purposes of these tax-exempt bond provisions including guidance which treats certain payments in lieu of taxes [PILOTs], as,

in substance, general taxes. These 1997 Treasury regulations were

based on longstanding general Federal income tax principles dating

back to the 1970’s dealing with the deductibility of taxes.

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Those 1997 regulations generally define generally applicable

taxes as an enforced contribution imposed under the taxing power

that is imposed and collected for the purpose of raising revenue to

be used for a governmental purpose. It must have a uniform tax

rate that is applied equally to everyone in the same class subject

to the tax and which has a generally applicable manner of determination and collection.

Although taxes must be determined and collected in a generally

applicable manner, the 1997 Treasury regulations permit certain

agreements to be made with respect to those taxes. An agreement

to reduce or limit the amount of taxes collected to further a bona

fide governmental purpose is such a permissible agreement.

In addition, the 1997 regulations treat PILOTs in the same manner as generally applicable taxes. Under the 1997 regulations, a

PILOT is treated as a generally applicable tax if the payment is

‘‘commensurate with and not greater than the amounts imposed by

a statute for a tax of general application.’’ For example, if the payment is in lieu of a property tax on the bond-financed facility, it

may not be greater in any given year than what the actual property tax would be on the property.

As I previously mentioned, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 eliminated the ability to finance stadiums and convention centers among

other facilities with tax-exempt private activity bonds. As a result,

State and local governments seeking to finance stadiums must now

issue tax-exempt governmental bonds and must subsidize repayment of those bonds from governmental sources including the generally applicable taxes. So, in layman’s terms, this means that a

State or local government may only issue tax-exempt governmental

bonds to finance a stadium if it does not require the professional

sports team to pay for the use of the stadium.

Very difficult interpretive issues arise, however, when a payment

purporting to be a generally applicable tax is imposed in a customized fashion on a private business use that finances bond-financed property. In these cases, the Office of Chief Counsel must

decide whether a payment is a generally applicable tax within the

exception from the private payments test or instead is more like a

lease or other payment which would be an impermissible private

payment.

This past July, the Office of Chief Counsel issued two favorable

Private Letter Rulings for tax-exempt governmental bond

financings for two stadiums. The facts in these rulings involved

professional teams that were going to use the stadiums, so the private business use was met. The question presented in the rulings

was whether the payments to be made by the teams and to be used

for the debt service on the bonds would constitute PILOTs treated

as generally applicable taxes or instead would be treated as private

payments.

Although we had serious concerns about whether the PILOTs in

those two rulings sufficiently resembled generally applicable taxes,

we nevertheless concluded that the 1997 Clinton Treasury Department regulations led to a favorable response to the taxpayer. Basically, we felt the 1997 Treasury regulations compelled the result.

But, more importantly, the two Private Letter Rulings served to

focus our attention on how broadly the 1997 Treasury regulations

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could be interpreted to permit PILOTs to be used to pay debt service on tax-exempt bonds in situation where PILOTs did not bear an

insufficient link to an otherwise generally applicable tax.

To address these concerns, we promptly published proposed regulations to provide new rules explaining when PILOTs would be considered to be commensurate with generally applicable taxes. The

basic purpose of these proposed regulations was to tighten the

standards for PILOTs as generally applicable taxes to assure a

closer relationship between the eligible PILOT payments and the

generally applicable taxes. In other words, we spotted a flaw in the

1997 Treasury regulations, and we moved expeditiously to fix it.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear this morning

and try to clear up the mis-impression and confusion that sounds

like it has surrounded this issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank Mr. Korb. Of course, because of

the complexity of this, we have given you close to 10 minutes to

testify.

Mr. KORB. And I appreciate that.

Mr. KUCINICH. You are welcome.

When we come back, we will go to rounds of questions, without

objection, of 10 minutes each so each member of the panel here will

have the opportunity to indulge in that complexity as well.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Korb follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. This committee will be in recess for 10 minutes,

and then we will return. Thank you.

[Recess.]

Mr. KUCINICH. The committee will come to order.

Just an announcement and that is that the full committee will

require the use of this room, and we will therefore go into recess

at a quarter after 1. We will come back in at 3. This is something

that in the flow of business here, we have to go with the flow.

So, again, a quarter after 1, we recess; at 3, we come back to this

room. I appreciate the cooperation of all the witnesses, and I ask

that all the witnesses be back here at 3 including the IRS.

I am going to question Donald Korb, without objection.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, a point of inquiry, the IRS is going to

have to leave around 1:15. At least, Mr. Korb will. When you said

IRS, you mean back-up personnel?

You have to leave right after this?

Mr. KORB. Unfortunately, I have a meeting that was scheduled

beginning at 1. I have sent a message back now to move it backward. I will do whatever you want, but it will be a problem for me.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, if we do 10 minutes a side, would that

be sufficient to conclude with this witness and then pick up the

new panel at 3?

Mr. KUCINICH. No, it would not.

Mr. ISSA. OK.

Mr. KUCINICH. I think it is important that the gentleman remain, and I think as we get into the questions, you will understand

why it is important from your perspective. I think you will want

to stay.

Mr. KORB. OK, whatever you want.

Mr. KUCINICH. I appreciate the gentleman’s cooperation.

I would like to first turn to the subject of Private Letter Rulings

for the New York Yankees and Mets. The regulations existing at

the time in 2006 were very specific, that payments in lieu of taxes

[PILOTs], ‘‘made in consideration for the use of property financed

with tax-exempt bonds ’’ were ‘‘special charges.’’ Special charges are

not equivalent to generally applicable taxes.

The Yankees wanted to make these payments in lieu of taxes for

the use of property, the new Yankee Stadium, which would be financed with tax-exempt bonds. As such, in the case of the Yankees

deal, were the Yankees right to be concerned with tax-exempt financing of their stadium?

Were they concerned that the tax-exempt financing of their stadium would not be allowed, Mr. Korb?

Mr. KORB. Excuse me?

Mr. KUCINICH. Were the Yankees right to be concerned that the

tax-exempt financing of their new stadium would not be allowed?

Mr. KORB. Well, the Yankees—remember, I didn’t personally

work on the ruling. If you use generally applicable taxes, as I testified, right, governmental funds, under the law that was passed in

1986, the Yankees, the city—the city owns the stadium, I think—

could use governmental bonds.

Mr. KUCINICH. If the IRS had not granted the Private Letter Ruling, then would the Yankees and the city of New York have been

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compelled to do things significantly differently? Their bonds would

have to be private activity bonds, isn’t that right?

Mr. KORB. Mr. Chairman, you are absolutely right, and that is

why we moved very quickly to eliminate the loophole created in

1987. That is exact. You are exactly right.

Mr. KUCINICH. So if taxable bonds would have been used, what

would that of done to the cost of building the new stadium?

Mr. KORB. They could have used taxable bonds—you are right—

and I assume the interest. I am not a municipal bond expert, but

I assume the interest would have been higher, yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. But let us review what this Private Letter Ruling

did. One, it allowed the Yankee Stadium project to avoid issuing

taxable bonds and, two, it entitled the Yankees to a reduced interest rate for construction of a stadium and thereby reduced the cost

to the Yankees for building a new stadium, isn’t that right?

Mr. KORB. Yes. We were following the law as it was written in

the regulations that were enacted in 1997. We feel compelled to follow the rules, and that is why we moved to change them.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is it logical that the Yankees wanted to use taxexempt bonds to retain a greater share of the profits for Yankee

ownership and that the Private Letter Ruling enables the Yankee

ownership to keep a greater share of the revenues which the Yankees will earn in the new stadium?

Mr. KORB. Well, you know, I am really not an expert on baseball

law, so I can’t answer that question.

Mr. KUCINICH. In other cases, as our previous witnesses have

testified, building a new stadium increased the value of a team

franchise. What does the building of a new stadium do to the value

of the Yankees and would this not make the owner in a more profitable condition?

Mr. KORB. Again, Mr. Chairman, I am not a baseball economist.

I am just a tax lawyer, so I don’t really feel qualified to answer

that question.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK, fine. Well, let us go back to the Private Letter Ruling which you issued for the Yankees.

Mr. KORB. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Can you tell the committee the circumstances in

which you came to learn about the facts of this case?

Mr. KORB. Well, let us be a little careful here. You will notice.

Mr. KUCINICH. Excuse me?

Mr. KORB. No. I am just going to say I have to be a little careful

with the answers I give here because I am constrained by the law.

I don’t want to be carted off and go to jail here. There is a code

section called 6103.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, you are under oath.

Mr. KORB. I understand. I understand.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK, continue.

Mr. KORB. But I am trying to explain to you. There is a code section called 6103 which prevents me from discussing specific taxpayer matters. So I have to be very careful. You would not want

me to go out on the street and talk about your tax affairs with

somebody out there. That is why that law exists.

So I will have to be, you will have to bear with me. In other

words, I can’t acknowledge that it is the Yankees.

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So if you could restate the question and let me try to answer

with those legal restrictions in mind.

Mr. KUCINICH. Can you tell this committee if the parties in the

case met with you or your staff at the IRS?

Mr. KORB. No one met with me. I do not know about the staff.

Mr. KUCINICH. Can you tell whether or not? Do you have anybody here from staff to say if there was a meeting?

Mr. KORB. No, but we could answer questions for the record on

those kind of details.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you know if any certain representations were

made by the Yankees in regards to this?

Mr. KORB. Well, again, well, the way the Private Letter Ruling

process works, it is not an examination, OK. The way it works is

somebody comes in with a transaction and tries to get, wants to get

the IRS to approve it before it is done, OK. You don’t send out revenue agents to check out the facts. What you rely on are the representations under oath, under penalties of perjury, by the taxpayers.

So I am sure in this case there were representations made that

then our lawyers relied on in giving the Private Letter Rulings.

That is the way it is done.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is this a form of lobbying?

Mr. KORB. No, no, no. This is, no.

Mr. KUCINICH. I mean there is no lobbying of the IRS going on?

Mr. KORB. No.

Mr. KUCINICH. No one lobbied you?

Mr. KORB. No. This is the way the process works.

Mr. KUCINICH. Since the parties felt that they needed a Private

Letter Ruling, they obviously felt they were doing something that

was, in some sense, unprecedented, isn’t that right?

Mr. KORB. No, that is not true at all. A lot of people come in on

very routine transactions. It is just when you do a major transaction, you want to make sure that you have crossed all the Ts and

dotted all the Is. So it is very, very common for even in the most

mundane to fix a problem for us. Because of our limited budget resources, we often times try to figure out ways where people want

to come in.

Also, keep in mind, the issuer submits a ruling request for the

bonds. It is not private party. So, in other words, it would have

been the issuer of the bonds that actually came in for the ruling.

Mr. KUCINICH. But they were trying to enable a private revenue

source to pay debt service on governmental bond in excess of the

legal limits, isn’t that right?

Mr. KORB. That is exactly why we moved to close, to change the

regulation.

Mr. KUCINICH. So, in your mind, weren’t they asking for special

treatment from you and you gave them that special treatment?

Mr. KORB. No, no, that is not true at all.

I took an oath of office when I came here, and everyone who

works for me did the same thing, but we swear to follow the laws,

OK, and the laws are the statutes that you guys pass, the regulations. The fact is when you come into office, you are bound by the

regulations of your predecessors, and we were just fortunate, to be

honest with you, that this came up so we could correct the regs.

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Mr. KUCINICH. Could you tell us what is the connection between

the Private Letter Rulings the IRS did for the Yankees and the city

of New York in July 2006, and this proposed rulemaking that you

spoke of published in October?

Mr. KORB. Oh yes, yes, yes. The timing is they came in, the

issuer. Remember, I can’t talk about specific taxpayers, but the

issuer came in and sought a Private Letter Ruling on the bonds.

We, our lawyers dealt with that, felt compelled by the regulations

that had been enacted in 1997 to give the ruling.

We immediately decided that we had to take a look at that and

try to fix it, and so we did. We put out proposed regulations that

deal with the problem that you are talking about here.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Korb, it was the testimony of Mr. Dennis

Zimmerman that IRS Private Letter Rulings for the Yankees and

the Mets and its proposed rulemaking pertaining to PILOTs violate

the intent of the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Now, Mr. Zimmerman has

some authority in this area. He is the author of numerous studies

and articles, even a book on tax-exempt financing including a legislative history.

What I want to know for the record is that is your testimony

today that your Private Letter Rulings for the Yankees and the

Mets and the subsequent proposed rulemaking are consistent with

the prohibition on tax-exempt financing for sports stadiums?

Mr. KORB. We felt at the time we issued this ruling, based on

the regulations that were left behind by the last administration,

that we had to issue this ruling. We moved expeditiously to change

that result.

Mr. TIERNEY. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes, I will yield.

Mr. TIERNEY. I am not going to be able to stay around much

longer, but I would like one clarification if I could, sir.

It seems that the issue that we might have a question about

would be the regulation that came out in 1997 or the interpretation

of that.

Mr. KORB. You are right.

Mr. TIERNEY. I know from your testimony that came during the

Clinton administration because I heard you say it 74 times, and I

thought that was interesting because I don’t really care if it came

under the Eisenhower administration and I suspect that nobody up

here does.

So that is where I think we want to focus. That regulatory issue

right there, you felt or your people felt it required them to come

to the conclusion that was reached.

Mr. KORB. We felt compelled. We felt our hands were tied.

Mr. TIERNEY. Can I just ask in your legal interpretation, was

there any prospect that there was room for interpretation of that

regulation?

Mr. KORB. We wouldn’t be sitting here today. We felt constrained.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK.

Mr. KUCINICH. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Korb, the committee has

received a memo this morning from the Congressional Research

Service on the public purpose of sports stadiums for purpose of the

private activity bond security test. I would like to direct committee

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staff to distribute the memo to the members of this committee and

give a copy of the memo to Mr. Korb and his staff.

As they are distributing it, I would like to read from this memo,

Mr. Korb, starting on page 3: ‘‘To satisfy part (ii), the requirement

that PILOTs are designated for public purpose, the PLRs’’—which

you issued for the Yankees and the Mets—‘‘rely on the stated purpose that the payments are for ‘economic development and recreational opportunities in the City’ that would be generated by

using these PILOTs to retire the bonds used to build professional

sports stadiums.’’

‘‘Aside from the extensive academic literature maintaining that

stadiums do not generate economic development, commentors

might challenge the implicit expansion of ‘public purpose’ to include

not only the facility itself but any activity indirectly associated

with the facility. An argument might be made that the conclusions

in the PLRs are at odds with the intent of Congress to rein in the

expanding use of tax-exempt bonds for private activities.’’

‘‘Enacted tax-exempt bond legislation culminating in the 1986

Act, have sought to curb the use of federally subsidized public debt

for what would otherwise be considered private activity.’’

Now, let me remind you, Mr. Korb, that building sports stadiums

was specifically removed from the list of eligible activities.

A little bit further on page 3, CRS makes the additional point

that taxpayer bond financing for sports stadiums and private parking garages to serve those sports stadiums represent what economists call an opportunity cost meaning that the money could have

been used for alternative purposes that are of greater public benefit.

What this says is ‘‘The inefficient allocation of capital contention

arises from the economic finding that additional investment in taxfavored private activities’’—I might add, such as building a sports

stadium and parking garages—‘‘will necessarily come from investment in other public projects. For example, if bonds issued for mass

commuting facilities did not receive special tax treatment, the bond

funds could be used for other government projects such as schools

or other public infrastructure.’’

Mr. Korb, I think that this memo raises questions as to whether

the IRS complied with the intent of the 1986 Tax Reform Act in

awarding tax-exempt bonds for sports stadium construction and

whether the IRS has, through this decision, frustrated other public

purposes from being achieved, namely school construction and

other public infrastructure.

Mr. KORB. Is that a question?

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes. Do you have any comment?

Mr. KORB. Oh, the comment would be that I don’t see the regulations cited in here in what you just read.

There was a very interesting question, I think Congressman

Tierney asked that I thought was very perceptive. Is this an interpretation of the law or is it the law itself? That goes to what the

chairman, you, just talked about. There could be varying interpretations.

Our lawyers who are well meaning, public spirited people, who

serve us at a great personal sacrifice in terms of compensation,

reached that conclusion, OK.

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Mr. KUCINICH. My time is expired. I am going to go to the gentlemen.

Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. I am going to pick right up on the same subject. I think

it is a good one.

Private Letters are simply insurance policies that your interpretation and their interpretation is the same thing? Is that roughly

right?

Mr. KORB. Yes, because it avoids a controversy later on down the

road.

Mr. ISSA. Right. It is only different in that it is a legal opinion

from a Government agency rather than your accountants or lawyers telling you this is OK but then saying we can’t guarantee the

IRS. This brings the IRS in.

Mr. KORB. That is right.

Mr. ISSA. When you are dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars of the people’s money in the case of New York City, this is prudent on both sides, right?

Mr. KORB. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. Who owns, who will own the new New York Yankee

Stadium when it is completed?

Mr. KORB. You know, I don’t know if I answered. The city of New

York will.

Mr. ISSA. OK, the city of New York is going to sell off their old

stadium. They are buying a new stadium. You inherited, from a

combination of Reagan and Clinton, a rather bizarre set of laws

that says if you pay for the whole thing out of the city’s coffers, it

is OK. It is only if you want to collect revenue from that entity,

that it is a problem because of this 10 percent rule.

The fact is they could build a stadium; collect nothing and just

let somebody play in it—one day, a Minor League team; 1 day, a

high school team; and the next day, the New York Yankees—and

they could pay for everything and it would be OK under Federal

law, right?

Mr. KORB. That is exact. That is exactly what they did in 1986.

Mr. ISSA. So, in 1986, and I always think of President Reagan

fondly because he lowered taxes but did revenue enhancement.

This law was intended to be a revenue enhancement. It tended to

tighten up a little bit.

Mr. KORB. The 1986 law took a series of project off the list. You

are exactly right.

Mr. ISSA. Revenue enhancement; now, without a new act of Congress, in 1997, the Clinton administration, and this is a partisan

body so I will use it more freely than you would. The Clinton administration, which had done the largest tax increase in American

history, passed through a ruling which I understand had public

hearings. They passed something that loosened this or at least created the opportunity for smart lawyers and accountants to take advantage of this loosening, is that correct, roughly?

Mr. KORB. Well, you are right. It is an interesting story because

in 1994 when the regulation was proposed is very similar to now

what we are proposing to do. So, in other words, it was originally

proposed as a tough rule. For whatever reason, in 1997, they made

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it a lenient rule, and now we are trying to bring it back where we

believe it belongs.

Mr. ISSA. Mistakes get made, and I appreciate the fact that you

have acted quickly when you discovered it.

But I want to go back because the chairman’s effort here, rightfully so, is we are looking at cities, decaying cities, problems in getting people to cities and the wealth and education and capability

of cities.

Let me run through some quick questions for you, and I realize

that you are not the economist that we had up here earlier, but the

fact is that if that stadium had been built with post-tax rather

than pre-tax money, so to speak, it would have cost more to do. The

city would have ended up with a higher total cost if they chose to

build it anyway.

Mr. KORB. Well, again, I am not a sports economist or a municipal bond expert, but I think I did respond to a question from the

chairman that probably would be true.

Mr. ISSA. Right, so the city who is the owner——

Mr. KORB. Right.

Mr. ISSA [continuing]. Ultimately takes advantage of a lower cost

of ownership on the replacement for a stadium which was built before anyone on the days was born. Babe Ruth may have built it,

but he built it a long time ago.

OK, so this is a loophole somewhat created in 1997, not intentionally perhaps but created that in your rulemaking, you are trying to close it again, but the bottom line is it did save the city of

New York money. It serves that purpose.

We can all have an argument about whether baseball or museums or anything else are good, but the law as it was written in

1986 and not changed in 1997 allows cities to do something like the

Big Dig. You can spend as much money as you want, and if you

are just using general revenue, you can keep spending until you

run out of money, and it is all bond tax deductible, right?

Mr. KORB. That is exactly right.

Mr. ISSA. We are trying to understand the flaws in the system,

and that seems to be one of the flaws, that if it is a revenue bond,

as we used to know them, then it is limited in its tax deduction,

but if it is going to just be the Big Dig, so to speak, it is OK.

Mr. KUCINICH. Excuse me, Mr. Issa. I apologize for interrupting

you. I have just been notified by the chairman of the committee

that they are requesting the use of this room now.

Mr. ISSA. Our rent is not paid in full yet.

Mr. KUCINICH. I don’t know. We probably would have benefited

from a tax-exempt approach, but I will stay this.

Mr. ISSA. Wouldn’t we all?

Mr. KUCINICH. Excuse me, Mr. Korb.

So what I would like to do is to continue at 3 with your questioning and to provide you with an additional minute for this exchange

here.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. This committee is in recess until 3, and thank you

very much.

[Recess.]

Mr. KUCINICH. The committee will come to order.

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Before we begin, I want to thank all the witnesses who have

been very patient with their time. The Congress is in kind of a

wind-up session here before break, so it is required that we go to

the floor for votes.

Now that we are back here, we have had some intervening matters that I want to call to the attention of the committee, and I am

going to ask Mr. Korb if he would be so patient as to indulge us

one more time.

At the request of Mr. Turner, we ask unanimous consent that

Mr. Murphy be permitted to speak out of order for a period of 5

minutes and 5 minutes only, at which time we would revert immediately back to Mr. Korb. If I have the concurrence of the members

of the committee, then at Mr. Turner’s request we will proceed.

Mr. Korb, thank you for your patience.

Mr. Murphy, if you would like to come forward? I would ask you

to be sworn.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Let the record show that the witness has answered in the affirmative.

I would ask, Mr. Turner, do you want to introduce Mr. Murphy

briefly?

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, I greatly appreciate that.

Mr. KUCINICH. He could go into this 5 minute testimony.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Murphy has a plane to catch, and that is why I appreciate

the chairman’s accommodation here.

As the chairman is aware, in Dayton where I was mayor, we

built a Minor League Baseball stadium. Mandalay Entertainment,

of which Bob is the president for the Dayton Dragons, has been a

great experience for us. We know certainly some communities have

had difficulty. We have had a good experience, and Bob is going to

tell us something about that experience and what we have seen in

our community from the transaction that we put together which

was a regional package.

So, with that, it is my privilege to introduce Mr. Murphy.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Turner.

Mr. Murphy, you may proceed, and it would be very important

for you to draw that mic a little bit closer so we can hear you.

STATEMENT OF BOB MURPHY, PRESIDENT, DAYTON

DRAGONS, DAYTON, OH

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to be here today to

share with you the story about a partnership that has been and

continues to be an amazing success. This partnership exists between a Single A baseball team, the Dayton Dragons, and the city

of Dayton. This amazing success story demonstrates that a city

with the proper tools and an engaged partner and with the right

economic deal can create something that can not only be a benefit

to a community. It can be a force that can change the community

forever.

Our Congressman, Mike Turner, was mayor at the time and was

very involved in this entire project.

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In 1998–1999, the city of Dayton was at a crossroads. The city

was in decline. There was an overwhelming public perception that

downtown was dead and that the hub of the region was no longer

a viable city. The prevailing opinion of the entire region was that

people would not come downtown and, in fact, had not been downtown for 20 years and that there was nothing that would get them

to do so.

People believed crime was everywhere. Streets were impossible

to navigate. Parking was an impossible situation. That was the

view of downtown. That view got worse when you looked to the future site of Fifth Third Field, the home of the Dayton Dragons—

deserted lots, deserted buildings, knocked down factories, graffiti

and garbage everyone. It was a classic brownfield situation.

The city made a decision to fight. They believed that Minor

League Baseball would make a difference. They also believed that

Mandalay Sports Entertainment was the partner that they needed

to succeed.

The city of Dayton under the leadership of then Mayor Mike

Turner and Mandalay Sports Entertainment reached an agreement

that the cost to the city for this project would be capped. There

would be no risk for the city on construction costs. Mandalay would

contribute $4 million to the project. Mandalay would also capitalized the stadium to a minimum of $1.5 million, having an equity

stake of $5.5 million.

Mandalay would assume all construction cost overruns. Mandalay would be responsible for repair and maintenance and utilities

for the entire 20 year term of this agreement. In summary, the city

would make a known investment with no risk of exceeding the

agreed upon level of investment.

What has the city of Dayton accomplished? The Dayton Dragons

have created jobs in the city of Dayton. Other companies benefit

economically from Dayton baseball including cleaning companies,

electrical companies, transportation companies, hotels, printing

companies, office suppliers, food suppliers and a whole host of others. Since 2001, the number of market rate housing units almost

doubled from 485 units to 929.

Dayton baseball has had the intended impact of being a stimulant for economic development in and around the area. Bars, restaurants, markets and building renovations have all occurred.

WorkflowOne, a $1 billion company with 500 employees, located its

headquarters adjacent to the baseball stadium due to the excitement of Dayton baseball. The CareSource Management Group is

building a $55 million office building near the stadium. The city of

Dayton is moving forward on Tech Town, a $25 million project created in the early stages of the baseball project to target technology

companies.

Other amenities have been successful due to the changed perception of downtown including the $120 million Schuster Performing

Arts Center and the $32 million recreational development along

the Miami River known as RiverScape. Each year, more than

500,000 come to downtown to enjoy the Dayton Dragons, also enjoying downtown’s offerings of restaurants and entertainment options.

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Buildings have been renovated to include apartments, condos

and loft living. Additional condos are being planned in and around

the stadium. Minor League Baseball attracts fans throughout the

region, helping to dispel those negative perceptions of downtown.

Now, the Ballpark District, a $230 million major mixed use development is being proposed around Fifth Third Field, capitalizing on

the success of baseball.

What have the Dayton Dragons accomplished? They have set the

all-time Single A attendance record on three occasions. They have

averaged over 580,000 fans each year. They have sold every single

seat before the season’s first pitch for 8 consecutive years. That has

never been done in over 100 years of Minor League Baseball history once. They have a sellout streak totaling 496 games which will

grow to 566 games this year, our eighth season.

Dayton has been in the top 10 in attendance in all classes of

Minor League Baseball which includes 160 teams. Fifth Third Field

has been selected as one of the top 10 ballparks, and the team has

received sports industry awards recognizing the franchise as the

best in minor league sports.

So did the city achieve its goal? Did the team achieve its goal?

The answer to both of these questions is yes.

Baseball has an effect on people too. Non-profit organizations

work at the stadium and have raised well over $2 million for youth

organizations. The Dragon’s Hometown Heroes Program is designed to thank and take care of families of deployed personnel at

the Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

Also, the Dragons have introduced a program known as the

Dragons MVP Program, a tool for teachers. This program is an incentive and award system for fourth and fifth graders. This program will be in 850 classrooms and will impact 25,000 students in

our area.

Just finally, if I may, the city of Dayton and the Dayton Dragons

are proud of what has been accomplished and believe that the

proper foundation has been built for future growth, economic development and have truly created a city that has the quality of life

that will allow the city to compete for people, companies and economically well into the future.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman. By agreement, the gentleman is free to go right now, and we are going to move on to Mr.

Issa’s 6 minutes of questioning of Mr. Korb.

I want to thank the gentleman for traveling here from Dayton

and thank Mr. Turner for making sure his testimony was available.

Thank you, Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, I greatly appreciate your allowing

him to testify.

Mr. KUCINICH. Absolutely.

We will continue with Mr. Korb’s testimony. Again, Mr. Korb,

thank you very much for your generous agreement to remain here

so that you can answer the questions. Also, we will look forward

to joining our next panel momentarily.

Mr. Issa, please proceed.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

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Mr. KORB. Yes, I do want to extend my appreciation to you for

permitting me to testify.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Korb.

OK, Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Can we put up the paragraph from the memo we were handed

earlier today? Is that as large as it can be?

Mr. Korb, do you have a copy of this memo? Were you given it?

Mr. KORB. Yes, I do.

Mr. ISSA. My understanding, having read it, is that on the first

page, the major paragraph which is actually the third paragraph

makes it clear, as I see it, that in fact what you did was consistent

with the public law and the precedent, and that is really what this

says, notwithstanding page 3. Have you had a chance to read that?

Mr. KORB. Yes, I agree with you.

Mr. ISSA. That is good that CRS, current CRS agrees that notwithstanding what might be right or wrong in a given city, that

you made the ruling that was the only ruling you could make

under the current IRS, non-changed.

Let me go back through just one more thing because I want to

understand. You have really done your work to be an expert on the

history of this, but I want us to understand it too. In 1971, the revenue ruling made it clear, if I understand, that the PILOTs were

considered general revenue.

Mr. KORB. Yes, I alluded to that in my opening statement.

Mr. ISSA. The bottom line is if you do a PILOT right, under current law, you are turning private money through this process into

general revenue just like it was anything, and when it is spent, it

is spent under the current congressional guidance to you and IRS

rulings. You are turning it into general ruling for the city as

though the city paid the whole thing directly.

Mr. KORB. That is exactly right.

Mr. ISSA. It may be a loophole, but 1971 makes it a pretty old

loophole.

More importantly, not only is this specific and allowed, but it appears as though in 1986 when the House and the Senate each

passed competing versions of the legislation that, in fact, governs

today, that the House saw much closer to what Mr. Kucinich’s first

witnesses said, the majority witnesses said. They passed and said

you shouldn’t be able to have stadiums financed with these revenues, period, while the Senate allowed for the continuation of what

you are faced with today. Is that your understanding?

Mr. KORB. Yes. It is interesting; the last time I served, did public

service with the IRS was 20 years ago, and I actually worked on

the 1986 Tax Reform Act as the Assistant to the Commissioner,

and you are exactly right.

Mr. ISSA. Faced with our decision from the House in 1986, our

decision appears to be similar today, but it wasn’t what prevailed

in conference.

When it comes to changing what you can change which you have

now noticed, do you believe that you should be successful in at

least going back to a pre-1997 standard?

Mr. KORB. Yes, as I said earlier, the proposed reg in 1994 is very

similar to what the standard we used in our proposed regulation.

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Mr. ISSA. If this body wants to explicitly stop the financing of

stadiums, not stadiums and other things like it, museums, etc., but

specifically stadiums, will we have to give you new legislation in

order for you to explicitly stop that?

Mr. KORB. Oh, absolutely, yes.

Mr. ISSA. OK, well, that is what I wanted to achieve more than

anything else is an understanding of your hands are tied as I understand. Beyond what you are trying to do through rulemaking,

your hands are tied unless both the House and the Senate this

time agree on a change, and that change would have to name stadiums in some way that would make them different than other public service entities that have a public-private performance.

Mr. KORB. Yes, that is right.

Mr. ISSA. I guess we have been unfair with our time in many

ways for you. Are there things that we should know beyond that

here today, things that you think we haven’t made clear in understanding what your limits are and how you have to treat these and

equities that maybe we could change that exist in the law?

Mr. KORB. Again, remember, we administer the Tax Law at the

Internal Revenue Service. We do not establish the policy. That is

up to the Treasury Department to recommend changes and for you

all to enact that.

As you just said, the law is very clear that if a city or State

wants to use governmental funds, it is perfectly free to do so under

the law, and we are obligated in following the law when we act.

We found this flaw in the regulation. We moved quickly to correct

it. We cannot go any further than that.

Mr. ISSA. OK.

Mr. KORB. At this point forward, that is all we can do.

Mr. ISSA. Good. I know you are not going to be able to give us

an exact number, but when we talk about all the stadiums and

ballpark expenses as a percentage of the moneys which cities

spend, cities, counties, States spend and invest in various public

works projects and as a percentage even of what private philanthropy gets a similar tax exclusion for, aren’t we talking today at

a fraction of a fraction of 1 percent?

Mr. KORB. I would think so. I don’t have any personal knowledge. It just makes common sense that is probably true.

Mr. ISSA. That is, as one member, what I would say. Although

it is important to look at every issue, I would hope that we look

with the same vigor at the 2, 5 and 10 percent of budget areas of

cities, States and even private philanthropy as well as we look at

this small part that I, as somebody who enjoys a baseball game,

Major and Minor—and I have Minor League in my district proper—hope that we continue to find ways to make these things happen.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your understanding in bringing this

and your indulgence in the extended questions, and I yield back.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank you very much.

Pursuant to the earlier order, we now return to the 5-minute

rule.

Mr. Korb, there seems to be a confusion about the 1986 law. Isn’t

it true that the 1986 Act, that under that, sports stadiums were

removed from the list of eligible activities for tax-exempt private

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activity bonds that exceeded 10 percent security interest test?

Wasn’t that the law?

Mr. KORB. What happened, Congressman, as I said earlier, they

were removed as private activities.

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes or no? I mean I just need that in order to understand this.

Mr. KORB. You can still finance stadiums from general tax revenue even under the 1986 Act. That is the law.

Mr. KUCINICH. So you are saying that was the law?

Mr. KORB. That is the law as of 1986.

Mr. KUCINICH. Was it the law for private revenue, and PILOTs

are private, right?

Mr. KORB. PILOTs are a substitute for taxes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Payment in lieu of taxes.

Mr. KORB. Payments in lieu of taxes are substitutes for taxes.

That is the whole idea.

Mr. KUCINICH. But that is the change that you made. That

wasn’t the way it was before you made the change, right?

Mr. KORB. No, no. PILOTs, as Congressman Issa said, go back

to 1971. The IRS, when you and I were both in school still, the IRS

indicated that PILOTs are general.

Mr. KUCINICH. Here is what I don’t understand then if that is

true.

Mr. KORB. This is very confusing. I can understand you are confused.

Mr. KUCINICH. Wait. No, I am not confused about this. What I

am wondering is if that is true, why did the Yankees need a Private Letter? If what you say is true and Mr. Issa pointed out back

to 1971, help me understand then what circumstances arose that

required that the Yankees have a Private Letter?

Mr. KORB. Well, these have to be governmental bonds, so they

only can be paid out of generally applicable taxes. So the Yankees

wanted the IRS to confirm under the 1997 regulations that these

payments are going to be treated as generally applicable taxes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Have you done this before or did you have to

make a special ruling that changed the nature of payment in lieu

of taxes for this particular case?

Mr. KORB. No. This is the law from the 1997 regulations.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that

the 1971 ruling that makes this the case be entered into the record.

I think it may help clarify.

Mr. KUCINICH. So ordered.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. We will put this in the record.

Mr. Korb, if an applicant seeks a Private Letter Ruling, must the

IRS give it or does the IRS have discretion?

Mr. KORB. To give a Private Letter Ruling? Unless it is a no ruling area, we generally give the Private Letter Rulings.

Mr. KUCINICH. In your earlier testimony, you stated that while

attorneys you work with at the IRS interpreted the law in the 1997

regulation in one way, other attorneys may have interpreted it differently. Now a central element of the Private Letter Ruling you

granted the Yankees was tax-exempt bonds to finance the new

Yankee Stadium would fulfill a public purpose.

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I want to quote from your Private Letter Ruling. ‘‘Here, the payments in lieu of taxes are designated for a public purpose. The PILOTs, or payments in lieu of taxes, are being used to pay the debt

service on the bonds which were issued specifically for the purpose

of financing the stadium to promote and encourage economic development and recreational opportunities in the city.’’

That is from your Private Letter Ruling.

Now, as you have heard, there is a consensus among the economists that stadium construction does not lead to economic growth.

So my question to you is did the IRS simply accept at face value

the claims of stadium financing applicants that the stadium would

achieve economic development or did you try to verify the representations?

Does the IRS consult academic literature? How do you come to

that frame of mind that says, OK, we are going to have a Private

Letter Ruling here, and this is the way it is going to go?

Mr. KORB. Well, that is a good question. Let me point out the law

here because we always need to follow the law here. Under the

1997 regulations, the PILOTs are treated as generally applicable

taxes if the payment is, one, commensurate with and not greater

than the amounts imposed by tax of general application and, two—

I am waiting for him to finish.

Mr. KUCINICH. Go ahead. I am listening.

Mr. KORB. And, two, designated for a public purpose and not a

special charge.

And so, as our lawyers look at the law, we have to apply the law

as it is set forth in the 1997 regulations. The PILOTs were based

on generally applicable tax. It was a real property tax, and the stadium was for a public purpose.

Mr. KUCINICH. How do you determine that the financing would

fulfill a public purpose? What did you describe as that public purpose?

Mr. KORB. Well, it is kind of interesting there because the regulations specifically contemplate a stadium being financed with the

generally applicable ticket tax. I would have your assistant look at

example 11 in the regulations there and ask himself the question,

how can we treat a stadium different for purposes of the public

purpose standard and the PILOT rules? It is a law that was written by the Clinton Treasury and had an example in there that said

that a stadium qualified.

We have to follow the law. We have no choice.

Mr. KUCINICH. And no discretion?

Mr. KORB. On that point, no, we really don’t.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I want to ask a question about the

process. Doesn’t Mr. Issa get a regular five now as well?

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes. I am sorry. Of course.

Mr. Issa.

Mr. SOUDER. I appreciate going to me first, but I have a slightly

different angle, but if Mr. Issa would like to take his five.

Mr. ISSA. OK, then I will take my first.

Following up, I heard the economist-settled question, but it

wasn’t settled in my mind.

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Your standard for whether it benefited a region was determined

by the people of New York and particularly the area surrounding

the baseball park. They felt, the city of New York in granting all

the eminent domain and everything else, they felt that this was a

qualified redevelopment. They felt that this would benefit the economy of their city.

So when we heard earlier from an economist, we heard that on

a macro sense the world was not better off because moneys were

spent in New York. It didn’t help people in Kabul or Islamabad or,

for that matter, perhaps in California. But that was a macro statement. There was no statement that it didn’t help the local areas.

Just the opposite, I believe I heard that it may help a local economy, but it had no net effect, and that was what was being given

to us.

Is that what you heard and is that the basis that you have to

go on of an economic benefit? The city thought there was an economic benefit for that region, right?

Mr. KORB. Well, we have an easier time of it because we just

look at regulation and our past rulings, and we have to follow the

precedent. That is what we have to do, and the law was laid out

very clearly.

There was a 1972 ruling that permitted deductions for amounts

paid by sponsors of a steeplechase race to promote tourism, and

they said that money was expended by a State, and promoting

tourism in the State is for exclusively a public purpose.

We just can’t make it up as we go along as much as you might

want to do that. We really have to follow the law as it is written,

and that is one of the reasons, Mr. Chairman, we decided that it

made sense here to propose a change in the law so that our successors in this job, the job I have right now, will be able to apply that

rule.

Mr. ISSA. Excellent.

Mr. Chairman, I would also like to put into the record an economist’s study from the Robert A. Woods professor of economics at

Smith College in Massachusetts. It is from May 1, 2004, and it specifically deals with Atlantic Yards, estimating that the total of

$2.93 billion over 30 years or a net present value of $1.08 billion

would be the advantage for that operation. Although it may not be

the one that is going to carry the day, it certainly seems that independent bodies such as a university economist very much believe

that there can be a net economic benefit, and I ask that be placed

in the record.

Mr. KUCINICH. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

As we wind this thing down, first of all, I want to thank you for

being here and for representing so well the obligations of the IRS.

As I understand it, you are one of the least stocked with political

appointee bodies there is.

Mr. KORB. There is only two of us, the commissioner and me.

That is it.

Mr. ISSA. Right, you and the Commissioner.

Unlike other organizations, and we oversight a lot of these in

which we hope that administrative appointees get in there and

beat up the bureaucracy, you essentially work for an organization

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that is the most apolitical organization that there is, from what I

can see.

Mr. KORB. And the organization is very proud of that.

Mr. ISSA. We are proud, too, to know that what we pay to the

IRS stays at the IRS, so to speak, and they do a great job of revenue collection. I think that is my closing question. Essentially, isn’t

it your job and your organization’s job, every person at the IRS, to

collect every possible nickel on behalf of the American people that

public law allows?

I don’t mean to twist and turn, but I mean that given a bias,

your bias is toward revenue collection, isn’t that true?

Mr. KORB. People don’t like to hear this, but one of our important

jobs is to protect the fisc. That is exactly right.

Mr. ISSA. In a sense, if we had given you some ability and if that

ability would allow you to say, no, please go issue those bonds but

we want our cut of it, you would have done that.

Mr. KORB. Exactly.

Mr. ISSA. And you would have done it in 1971, in 1986, in 1997

and in this millennium. So over Republican and Democratic Congresses, Republican and Democratic administrations, your body has

been tied by two things: one, the law and, two, the continued will

of the Congress not to change that law. Even when we overhauled

in 1986, we ultimately did and then undid the guidance because of

the very nature of what these stadiums represent to communities

and to our cultures, isn’t that right?

Mr. KORB. That is correct. That was a bipartisan effort at that

time too. People forget that, but the other body was Republican in

those days.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you and thank you for your being here today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to make a few general comments because I haven’t had

much opportunity to participate in the hearing for a variety of reasons, not the least being chopped up with votes on the floor and

then a committee markup.

I have a couple of frustrations. I know that the chairman is generally very fair person, but I was very concerned that there really

hasn’t been debate in the panels and had you not so generously allowed the gentleman from Dayton to come up here, we would have

never heard debate during this.

I came in more receptive to your position, and as I listened to

the earlier panels and then read the testimony, I am less convinced

now of the problem than I was when I came in because when you

only hear witnesses stacked one direction, and most of the last

panel is, you wonder what they are hiding. I felt that there were

a number of appalling gaps in the presentations in the first and

second panel. For example, what would have happened had a stadium not been in downtown Detroit, Seattle or in New York?

If you take an undervalued property in a brownfield in an urban

center and then instead of doing it there, go out to the suburbs at

an interstate exit, the displaced property values. In other words,

part of the reason there are public incentives on downtown propVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:07 Dec 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00128 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38037.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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erties is because in these brownfields, for a variety of reasons—environmental, crime, transportation systems—the private sector isn’t

investing in those.

But if we put the stadiums out and made it a pure profit venture, they would go out and displace because the basic assumption

in these financial analyses that we heard beforehand is that there

is a lost dollar value to the community.

But if you put a less return property that doesn’t generate—if indeed you accept the premise that they don’t generate a lot of other

revenue around them—in an area that is a high value value-added

to the area, for example, at interstate exits and others, you would

have to have a whole different financial calculation. In other words,

there are huge gaps in just trying to present this as an almost anticapitalist venture because if the capitalists did a pure market, they

would have a different pattern. There is a secondary agenda, and

that is to revitalize certain areas.

Also, and this disturbs me because, under oath, one of the witnesses said that all of these sports areas had failed to achieve their

community goals. That is a very broad sweep, and it was under

oath. In particular, what I think is important to ask, and I have

to head to the airport like the other members and maybe it will

come up in the last panel or hopefully if any of the witnesses want

to respond in writing to the hearing record.

Is this true of Minor League Baseball? What about Dayton? That

was a very compelling case. Minor League Baseball teams have a

different challenge than many of these major urban areas and the

question of have some of them worked, some of them not worked.

Can you make a uniform statement and what kind of responses

are there to Dayton, to other areas that have had more mid size

and smaller size city efforts? This is a debate going on in my hometown of Fort Wayne, IN. It is a debate that goes on in smaller and

mid size cities all over the country, and the challenges of many of

our really hard hit urban centers are substantially different than

the challenges, similar, may rhyme but substantially different than

the challenges faced in small town America or mid size city America.

By having a hearing that implies that any public bonding of any

type of sports franchise always fails and lets that stand undebated

until mid to late afternoon and when most of the press corps has

left is just, I believe, not fair. We should have had this debate on

the first panel, and I hope in the future the chairman realizes that

his own cause can be furthered by letting members, who may start

receptive, hear some cross-correlation and debate in the panels.

I yield back.

Mr. KUCINICH. To my good friend, Mr. Souder, our majority staff

had worked with the minority staff and offered them the opportunity to choose witnesses. They chose two witnesses for this hearing. One was the gentleman from the Dayton Dragons, Mr. Murphy, who asked to testify earlier, and the other one is Michael

Decker who is the senior managing editor of the research and public policy of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

In addition to that, we made an effort to have Major League

Baseball come and testify. They have refused.

126

The representative of the IRS, Mr. Korb, certainly represents a

point of view that is, I would say, vastly different than some of the

witnesses that we asked to come forward.

So I think that anyone who was watching this would feel that

they have been able to get both sides of the question because there

are two sides, and I want to make sure that they are presented

here.

I thank the gentleman for expressing his concerns.

We are going to go to just a final round of questions for Mr.

Korb, and then we are going to go to the fourth panel. I appreciate

continuing appreciation for your presence.

I want to address the issue of the decision to cancel a public

hearing and begin by asking you what is the status of the rule

change now?

Mr. KORB. That is a good question. I meant to cover that in my

opening statement. Where we are right now is we are in the process of reviewing the public comments on the proposed regs, and we

anticipate receiving more, and we will be making a decision as to

whether to finalized the proposed regulation in the form proposed

hopefully before the end of the summer.

I don’t have the facts on this particular hearing. We could followup for the record. Often times, nobody requests to come in, and so

if nobody requests to come in, then we will cancel the hearing. I

don’t know the facts of this particular one, and we can submit that

for you later. I can tell you exactly what happened here.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, are you aware? You are saying that rule, it

still is in the proposal level and that it is has not gone into effect?

Mr. KORB. Oh, right, it is still proposed, absolutely.

Mr. KUCINICH. In your Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, you notice a public hearing on this proposed rule change. It was set to

occur on February 13, 2007. Did this public hearing occur?

Mr. KORB. No one asked to attend.

Mr. KUCINICH. That was the reason for the cancelation?

Mr. KORB. Right. We don’t, we have to pay for the room, so if

nobody is going to attend, we are not going to hold the hearing.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you aware that you did, in fact, receive a

comment from a Mr. Daniel Steinberg of an organization known as

Good Jobs New York? In it, he presents an argument based in

large part on testimony given by the New York City’s Department

of Finance that payments in lieu of taxes are not equivalent to generally applicable taxes.

I want to quote from a copy of a letter that was sent, I believe,

to your office on April 25, 2005: ‘‘New York City’s Corporate Counsel, Michael Cardozo argued that PILOTs, payments in lieu of

taxes, are not the same as taxes.’’

This is in inner quotes: ‘‘Contractual rights to receive payments

in lieu of taxes in the future directed by the mayor pursuant to economic development agreements are not revenues of the city. They

are, instead, contract rights that can be transferred or otherwise

disposed of by the mayor.’’

It goes on to say: ‘‘And they are therefore not subject to payment

into the general fund and subsequent appropriation.’’

Do you think that Mr. Cardozo, who was representing the city

of New York at a public hearing of a committee of the New York

127

City Council, made a valid point about the distinction between tax

revenue and payments in lieu of taxes, if you could answer that

question?

Mr. KORB. Sure. At this point in time, since we have a notice and

comment process, I don’t want to prejudge where we are going to

come out in this regulation, and so when I testify at hearings like

that, that is the answer I give. We are in the middle of a process.

It is best to wait until all the comments are in.

When did you say we received this?

Mr. KUCINICH. The staff could make a copy of this for you.

Mr. KORB. I am just wanting the date.

Mr. KUCINICH. January 16, 2007, and that was the closing day.

Mr. KORB. So it is one of the comments. All right, fine, that will

be taken into account, clearly, as part of this process. Our people

review all the comments. I think there were just a handful, a couple. This is a thoughtful process. We take our responsibilities very

seriously.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you familiar with those comments when they

come in?

Mr. KORB. No, no, no, I do not, no. Remember, we have hundreds

of regulations projects going on at any on time.

Mr. KUCINICH. In reading your proposed rulemaking, I am looking for evidence that you made a distinction between tax revenue

and payments in lieu of taxes. Have you made that distinction?

Mr. KORB. In the proposed regulation?

Mr. KUCINICH. I am just saying from my reading of the proposed

rulemaking, there is no evidence.

Mr. KORB. I have it right here. The thing that we put in the Federal Register on October 19, 2006, that defines the commensurate

standard. Is that what you are looking at?

There is a Section 1.141–4, Private Security Payment Test, E5,

Payments in Lieu of Taxes. Is that what you are referring to?

Mr. KUCINICH. Right.

Mr. KORB. What is the question?

Mr. KUCINICH. The question is where is the evidence that you

considered the distinction between tax revenue and payments in

lieu of taxes?

Mr. KORB. Well, when you look at the rule here, remember, what

we are trying to define here is the first part of that test. Remember, I talked about that two-part test, the commensurate, we will

call it the commensurate with generally only applicable taxes. The

way this rule, what we do is we have a series of rules here, and

again there is a real misunderstanding of what we did, OK, and

maybe you ought to have your guys go back and look at it.

Mr. KUCINICH. Actually, you and I are looking at it right now,

sir.

Mr. KORB. OK, but what we have done here is we have tied payments in lieu of taxes in a way so they tie into taxes. What are

generally applicable taxes? The 1997 regs were much looser.

So now, if you look at the rules we have set out here, basically,

the way you would comply with this is you would value the property.

You should know, Mr. Chairman, Ohio, we have a very unusual

situation based on a 1948 case dealing with the Cleveland MuniciVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:07 Dec 04, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00131 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38037.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pal Stadium. Even though that was a city-owned property, that

was a taxable property on the real estate rolls. I don’t know if you

knew that or not. McBride, the guy who owned the Browns, lost

the case where he claimed that since the city owned it, he didn’t

have to pay real estate taxes, OK.

So the way this would work—if you think about this, it makes

sense—is that you would value the property——

Mr. KUCINICH. You can continue, really. I can walk and chew

gum at the same time, and you can continue.

Mr. KORB. All right, that is fine.

You value the property as you would any other commercial property. You have an assessment rate, and you apply the tax rate. So

they are trying to equate. That is the way you would want to do

this, it seems to me, if you want to figure out what is a generally

applicable tax, and that is what these rules do.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, as the flow of this hearing goes and I saw

this letter from Steinberg, I was wondering if there was just a coincidence that he provided comment to the IRS on a proposed rulemaking, and IRS canceled its public hearing.

Mr. KORB. He wasn’t the only one who commented. We had other

comments as well.

Mr. KUCINICH. So then why wasn’t there an effort?

Mr. KORB. He must not have asked for a hearing. If he had

asked for a hearing, we would have had a hearing.

Mr. KUCINICH. We have this correspondence that shows that he

was making a distinction between the tax revenue and payments

in lieu of taxes, and what I am wondering is as he was making that

distinction that seemed to run a little bit contrary to the IRS’ rulemaking on this. So what I am asking you is after hearing this discussion in this committee today, do you have any interest in a public hearing?

Mr. KORB. We will go back and take a look at it. I mean I don’t

know why not, but I will go back and look. We would have to go

through I don’t know what the legal process is.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you have the discretion to?

Mr. KORB. I don’t know. I would assume I would. I am the Chief

Counsel, right. So we will figure it out. We will figure it out.

And let me tell you it is not uncommon. I have had experience

in the past when I was here before where Members of Congress

have actually come and testified at the hearing. So we would welcome that. This is an open process, OK. This is a very open process,

and so we welcome comments. We want to know this from all sides.

We welcome that.

And I think you would want me. I will be one of the two decisionmakers here basically along with the Assistant Secretary. You

would want me to have an open mind at this point until all is said

and done, I would hope.

Mr. KUCINICH. I appreciate you describing it as an open process,

but I would guess that until we have had this open discussion,

there have been elements of this process that have been lacking in

transparency. Private Letter Rulings are, by their nature, as you

indicated at one point, limited in how much is able to be disclosed

when you are talking, and I understand that.

Mr. KORB. There is a reason for that. Remember the tax law, yes.

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Mr. KUCINICH. I understand that much. On the other hand, when

you get from tax policy that goes from an individual taxpayer following the tax laws of this country to an applicant for a particular

privilege where they transit from private to a public interest, it

puts it in realm that is somewhat unique.

Therefore, the purpose of this hearing, which is to delve deeply

into issues of the circumstances under which tax-exempt financing

is offered, has its relevancy in raising the questions, not only about

transparency but as Chief Counsel how do you make these distinctions. If that is not very clear coming out of this hearing, then the

public may still have some lingering questions as to whether or not

some people received some benefits that maybe under the circumstances they shouldn’t have received.

Mr. KORB. Can I respond to that?

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. KORB. All right, three things: No. 1, as part of our comment

process, when we put out the final reg, we detail comments. We

discuss the comments, and we explain why we don’t adopt comments or why we would adopt the comments, totally transparent.

You can send one of your aides down to our reading room right now

and get a copy of every single letter that is filed on comments for

our regulations, totally open.

I just want to reiterate again. You make it sound like we somehow closed this guy out. No one requested a hearing, and we do

not hold hearings if they don’t, people don’t request them. If somebody had requested a hearing.

Mr. KUCINICH. If I may, that is an interesting point. I mean you

are saying under no circumstances would you ever hold a hearing

unless somebody requested it, no matter what the level of public

policy was involved.

Mr. KORB. What would be the purpose of the hearing if nobody

showed up?

Mr. KUCINICH. It seems to me, going back to my days in city

council, that there are certain requirements in the public interest

for even a zoning matter, that people receive a notice, on a liquor

permit, that people receive a notice so that they have an opportunity to be able to testify. Some of these hearings took place

whether people showed up or not.

The question is, as a matter of public policy, do you see any reason to go forth and hold public hearings and demonstrate in good

faith, bringing out these issues in a transparent way?

Mr. KORB. I am not an expert in administrative law, but I would

be quite concerned if we are not following the administrative procedure act or whatever it is. We will take a look. We will take a look.

We could have a hearing.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, I think this hearing would prove to you

there is an interest in payments in lieu of taxes as a matter of policy.

Mr. KORB. Well, it may now with this publicity. Sure, that is possible. But I am saying nobody asked. I am being honest with you.

Like you, I am a guy from the Middle West here. I am telling you,

nobody requested a hearing, OK. Nobody requested a hearing.

If somebody had requested a hearing, we would have had a hearing.

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Mr. KUCINICH. On matters of tax policy like this, the general

public may not have access to the policy implications of the kind

of rulemaking that you are talking about, and as a result of publicity related to this, it seems to me there may be a higher degree of

interest.

Mr. KORB. All right, there might be. Don’t get me wrong; we

have hearings all the time. All the time, we have hearings. We

have hundreds of regulations that we are working on at any one

point in time.

I will tell you, though, it is not uncommon either for nobody to

request a hearing. It is expensive to come to Washington, all sorts

of things. That is why I think the APA uses the public.

You know anybody can write in, and I will tell you from my experience, our people, the people at Treasury take that very seriously.

They compile a list of all the comments that come in. They go

through and digest them. It is amazing, the effort that goes into

this, and that is what you would want, you would expect, you

would demand, and that is done.

Mr. KUCINICH. Again, transparency has symmetry if you have a

transparent process where you are able to determine the distinction between tax revenues and payments in lieu of taxes on the one

hand and whether you are holding public hearings or not. This

committee is interested in how the process that you are involved

is able to be determined by the public so that in the event that people want to participate.

I am interested in how you arrive at reaching out to the public

to let them know what you are doing because we are not just talking about an ordinary tax matter here as you well understand

which is one of the reasons why we needed to hear from you at

length, and you testified as to the complexity of this.

Mr. KORB. It is very complicated.

Mr. KUCINICH. But at the same time, the complexity of it would

seem to put a higher standard upon the IRS to reach out and let

the public know about the implications of this. You make a lot of

efforts, gratefully, to simplify tax forms. It would seem to be in the

public interest for you to make an effort to simplify a discussion

of a complex tax matter as a matter of public policy.

I want to thank the gentleman for his presence here, for his

being with this committee process for the better part of this day.

You have absolutely made a good faith effort to describe the policy,

to communicate your position to this committee, and the committee

is grateful for that, and I thank you.

Mr. KORB. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am going to call the final panel now.

Will the witnesses rise, please?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Let the record show that the witnesses answered

in the affirmative.

We are fortunate to have an outstanding group of witnesses on

this panel.

We have Mr. Neil deMause, a native New Yorker who has written for the Village Voice sports section, New York Newsday, Sports

Jones, and the Guardian Newsweekly. He is a regular contributor

to several progressive publications including Z Magazine. His book,

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Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public

Money into Private Profit, casts a critical eye on the use of public

funds to build new sports stadiums.

The next witness, Dr. Heywood Sanders, is a professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Texas, San

Antonio. Dr. Sanders is among the best known independent critics

of publicly financed convention centers. He served as a Senior Program Analyst at the Office of Evaluation, Community Planning and

Development of the U.S. Department of Housing and Development.

His publications include Convention Myths and Markets: A Critical

Review of Convention Center Feasibility Studies and Challenging

conventional Wisdom: Hard Facts about the Proposed Boston Convention Center.

Finally, the third witness, Michael Decker is a senior managing

director of research and public policy for the Securities Industry

and Financial Markets Association which promotes policies and

practices designed to expand and perfect markets, foster development of new products and services and create efficiencies for member firms. The Industry and Financial Markets Association seeks

to preserve the public’s trust and confidence in markets and industry and was created as a result of the 2006 merger of the Bond

Market Association and the Security Industries Association.

Gentlemen, thank you for your presence.

Mr. deMause, you may proceed with your testimony.

STATEMENTS OF NEIL DEMAUSE, AUTHOR, BROOKLYN, NY;

HEYWOOD SANDERS, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, SAN ANTONIO, TX;

AND MICHAEL DECKER, SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR, RESEARCH AND PUBLIC POLICY, THE SECURITIES INDUSTRY

AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, DC

STATEMENT OF NEIL DEMAUSE

Mr. DEMAUSE. Good afternoon. I would like to thank Chairman

Kucinich and the other members of the committee for holding this

important hearing.

My name is Neil deMause. I am co-author of the book, Field of

Schemes, as well as a business of baseball writer for Baseball Prospectus and other publications.

In the nearly 12 years I have been researching this topic, sports

stadiums and arena deals have cost local, State and Federal Governments more than $10 billion in taxpayer money, and this is on

the rise with government spending on sports facilities now costing

more than $2 billion every year. Advocates of these subsidies insist

they are a good use of public money even as schools, transportation

and other public necessities go underfunded.

Let us examine the arguments. First, stadium boosters claim

they provide a shot in the arm to local economies. I have yet to find

any independent economists who see any significant positive impact from stadiums. It is not just the people testifying here today.

Studies with cities with new stadiums have found no sign of increased per capita income. In terms of job creation, they typically

cost as much as $250,000 per each new job which is simply a terrible bang for the buck.

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While stadiums are often built to take advantage of already rebounding districts like Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, there is no sign

they can create new development by themselves. As Chairman

Kucinich is no doubt aware, a block or two away from Jacobs Field

in Cleveland, you see the same shuttered stores as before.

Team owners often claim they will move if their demands are not

met, but most often they are just crying wolf to shake loose a few

more taxpayer dollars. Both the Chicago White Sox threatened to

move to Tampa Bay and the Minnesota Twins to North Carolina.

It turned out to have been ideas hatched in Governors’ offices to

scare locals into coughing up funds for new stadiums at home.

White Sox owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, later admitted he would never

leave the Nation’s third largest media market for one of the smallest, but he explained ‘‘A savvy negotiator creates leverage.’’

Yet, even when there is no viable move threat, we still see cities

bidding against themselves. Washington, DC’s $611 million gift to

the Nationals was even more incredible considering no other city

made a viable offer to build a stadium.

Team owners say their current homes are economically obsolete.

In other words, they can make more money with a new one so long

as they didn’t have to pay for it. As places to watch sporting

events, though, new facilities are often worse than the old buildings they replaced. Cheap seats are fewer and farther from the action thanks to layers of corporate seats pushing upper decks skywards, and fans can expect to pay more for the privilege. Baseball

teams moving into new parks raised ticket prices by an average of

41 percent their first year alone.

The latest edition to the stadium playbook is hidden subsidies

such as free rent, tax breaks and infrastructure expenses. New

York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg promised new Yankees and

Mets stadiums would cost taxpayers nothing. In fact, as you will

see in my written testimony, after tax and rent kickbacks, the public share was almost $800 million, more than the teams themselves

end up spending.

Harvard researcher, Judith Grant Long, has found that once hidden subsidies are accounted for, the average stadium now costs 40

percent more than publicly reported, and that figure is on the rise.

As someone who writes critically about public spending on sports

facilities, I am often asked, do you hate all stadium deals? Now,

certainly there is a price deal where it would make sense for cities

to contribute a small share for stadiums, but in reality there are

very, very few examples of good deals for the public. I think if we

grant the argument that Dayton’s stadium is a good one, for every

Dayton, there are a hundred Aberdeens where we are seeing the

State of Maryland being asked to bail out a money-losing stadium.

This points to the sports industry’s dirty little secret. New stadiums don’t make money. While teams are quick to paint new buildings as cash cows, the new revenues are almost never enough to

pay for all the land and construction costs.

This is important. Teams don’t want new stadiums because they

make money. Teams want new stadiums because of the public subsidies that come with them.

Now, there are several ways that Congress can act to stop wasteful spending on sports facilities. First, close the loophole we have

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been talking about today that allows sports teams to use Federal

tax-exempt bonds. Kansas City Royals fans would no doubt not be

pleased to learn that their tax dollars are going to help make the

New York Yankees and Mets even richer, and I think no one would

be pleased to learn that the New York Yankees and Mets were able

to go before the New York City Council and argue that these were

stadiums being built entirely with private funds and then go to the

IRS and say, no, no, no, all this money is actually tax dollars.

Second, drastically restrict the business retainment deduction for

luxury box and club seat purchases. Take away tax subsidies for

businesses to buy tickets to sporting events, and you will reduce

the demand for new stadiums and leave more tickets for the average fan who can’t take a tax deduction on spending a day at the

ballpark.

Finally, put the brakes on for all industries holding cities hostage

for tax subsidies with legislation such as that proposed by your

former colleague, David Minge, which would have taxed all direct

and indirect subsidies to corporations as income. A team owner

asking for $500 million stadium subsidy might think twice if he

was going to face a $150 million IRS bill as a result.

In the rush to build new sports stadiums, we have lost historic

ballparks such as Tiger Stadium and soon Yankee Stadium. We

have seen public parks destroyed and thriving neighborhoods disrupted. We have hastened the transformation of sports fandom

from an experience that brought together people from all walks of

life into one that is affordable only to the well heeled, and we have

cost local, State and Federal Governments billions of dollars.

In polls and referendums, voters across the political spectrum are

consistently opposed to spending sorely needed tax dollars just to

make rich sports teams even richer. To our elected officials, I say

the ball is now in your court. Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Mr. deMause follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Dr. Sanders.

STATEMENT OF HEYWOOD SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you, Mr. Kucinich. It is a pleasure to join

you and your committee colleagues here this afternoon.

If we look at the title of this hearing, it is really quite striking.

I get to be the Tail End Charlie in dealing with convention centers

and publicly financed hotels. The title poses the question, do these

facilities deliver as promised? To that, we can give a fairly clear answer. With only the rarest of exceptions, absolutely no.

Why? Why are convention centers such a modestly productive

public investment? In part, because so many cities have chosen to

invest in these same facilities in recent decades. From about 32.5

million square feet of exhibit hall space in 1986, the best count we

have is now in excess of 66 million. We have more than doubled

the stock of exhibit hall space in this country, adding new convention centers and expanded ones in cities across the country. I note,

however, Cleveland is an intriguing exception as is Dayton, as I

understand it.

With this incredible development of convention centers at public

expense has come a situation of over-supply and increased competition with relatively modest growth in the demand for convention

facilities. Out of town visitors that cities expect and anticipate, the

visitors that are forecast to come to these convention centers, come

in far more modest numbers than expected and in recent years in

even fewer numbers as the years go on.

The result is a situation where from one end of the country to

the other, cities of all sizes are offering a variety of incentives and

discounts and giveaways in order to try and lure convention events

and their attendees to their communities. I note that St. Louis offers folks their convention center rent-free this year if you feel like

going to St. Louis with some of your friends and colleagues.

The promises inherent in these forecast are equally intriguing. I

recall the case that you actually alluded to in a study I did in 1997,

the proposed Boston convention center. I was quite struck that the

consultant for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts forecast that

with a new convention center, Boston would add in excess of

750,000 hotel room nights. That is one room in a hotel occupied for

one night each year, a total that would grow and remain fairly stable.

I was rather more pessimistic, given my assessment of the market. I concluded that their hotel room night generation would be

rather on the order of half that figure. It turned out that for last

year, it came to about 340,000, a bit shy of the 770,000 anticipated.

It is also presumed that every convention and trade show

attendee will spend in excess of $1,000 in a city and stay 31⁄2 days,

and we have a great deal of evidence including the Boston case but

a great many others, that simply doesn’t occur.

The expectation of a convention center, that at the very least it

will bring visitors from out of town and yield a great deal of new

private investment, precisely the kind of private investment and

development Mr. Murphy was talking about in the Dayton case, we

should see that were we to look. Private investors should flock to

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build hotels adjacent or nearby new and expanded convention centers.

Instead, we see a rather different pattern in recent years. Increasingly, cities are going into the convention center hotel business, using tax-exempt municipal bonds to build hotels that are

fully publicly owned. In two cases, St. Louis and my own community of San Antonio, cities have made use of Federal empowerment

zone bonds in a similar fashion to build and finance hotel development.

Publicly owned hotels in Austin and Houston, TX, Omaha, Bay

City and even one being discussed as a potential for Cleveland

present us with an intriguing case. Cities are trading, going into

a business where private investors have simply perceived far too

great a risk and uncertainty. At the same time, these publicly

owned hotels are directly competing with privately owned and privately financed hotels directly across the street in some cases, hotels that do not have the advantage of tax-exempt municipal bond

financing and lower interest rates.

The result has often been to seriously impact the local hotel market, reduce rates, reduce returns and intriguingly, in the case of

Houston, force a Hyatt Hotel in the downtown area to foreclosure.

So we, in essence, have a situation where having made an investment that has proven remarkably modest in terms of its economic

impact and productivity, cities now pour even more money into the

hotels that were supposed to be generated privately.

Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Dr. Sanders.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sanders follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Decker, thank you. Proceed.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL DECKER

Mr. DECKER. Thank you, Chairman Kucinich. I appreciate the

opportunity to be here today.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association represents securities firms, banks and asset managers active in the

global securities markets. Our members include all major dealers

in State and local government bonds issued to finance a wide variety of public infrastructure. In short, SIFMA’s members serve as

the conduits between State and local governments and the capital

markets. We take an active interest in Federal policy that affects

the ability to States and localities to tap the capital markets to finance new investment.

The Federal tax exemption on the interest earned by investors on

most municipal bonds gives State and local governments that borrow in the capital markets a significant break on their interest

rates. In fact, the tax exemption is one of the most important

sources of Federal aid to States and localities. It saves State and

local governments tens of billions of dollars a year. It requires very

little Federal bureaucracy to oversee and allows State and local

communities to make their own decisions about competing priorities for capital investment.

The tax exemption represents an ideal Federal-State-local financial partnership.

Local communities have a long history of using bonds to finance

stadiums and arenas for professional sports teams as well as convention centers and other projects designed to jump start economic

development and enhance the quality of life including the 1930

Cleveland voters’ approval of $2.5 million of city bonds to build

Cleveland Municipal Stadium which became the longtime home of

the Indians and Browns.

Before 1986, many bonds sold to finance stadiums were backed

directly or indirectly by the professional teams that used the stadiums as we have learned throughout the day today. With the enactment of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, Congress prohibited these

kinds of bonds known as private activity bonds from being used for

stadiums and arenas, convention centers and hotels. At the same

time, Congress left the door open for communities to commit public

resources to finance stadiums and the like.

Since 1986, if a local government wants to use tax-exempt bonds

to finance a stadium, that community has to pledge some public

source of funds such as taxes or other dedicated revenue to back

the bonds. The tax code includes a two-part test for determining

whether a bond issued by a State or local government is for a public purpose or private activity. Basically, a bond is a private activity bond if the facility being financed is used mainly by a private

business and the repayment of principle and interest on the bond

is secured by a private business. If a bond meets those tests, it cannot be federally tax-exempt unless it meets an explicit exception

which does not include stadiums.

However, if a tax-exempt bond for a stadium or any other project

is backed by a public source of funds, that fund is deemed to be

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a public purpose bond. In that case, there are relatively few tax

code restrictions on what the bond may be used for.

In devising a two-part test for private activity, Congress clearly

foresaw that local communities may want to commit public resources to finance facilities used principally by businesses like

sports teams. The two-part test wisely recognizes that decisions on

where and how direct public resources are best made by local communities themselves, not Congress or the Federal Government, and

local communities shouldn’t lose the ability to use tax-exempt financing for projects that might benefit a private business in addition to the community overall.

I point out a couple of observations regarding the use of tax-exempt bonds for sports stadiums in particular. The tax exemption is

important, and it reduces the cost of developing a sports stadium

but only by a little bit compared to the overall cost of the project.

If you take a $400 million stadium deal, the tax exemption doesn’t

reduce the $400 million construction cost of the project at all, and

it doesn’t eliminate the requirement to pay interest on the bonds.

It does reduce the interest rate on the bonds and would save the

public developer of the project millions of dollars, but there still

would be a considerable demand on public resources regardless of

whether the stadium were financed with taxable or tax-exempt

bonds.

In addition, if you eliminated the tax exemption on public purpose bonds used to finance stadiums, you wouldn’t reduce the pressure that sports team owners sometimes place on public officials to

build stadiums using public resources. You would raise the cost to

local governments and actually put a great demand on resources

that local governments would have to meet in order to finance stadiums and meet team owners’ demands.

The debate over whether the economic benefits of stadiums, arenas, convention centers and hotels justifies the use of public resources is a controversial one. There is evidence on both sides of

the debate.

SIFMA believes strongly that the decision can only be made efficiently at the State and local level by the citizens and policymakers

closest to the issues involved. We also believe that Congress should

not disrupt a decades old statute defining which types of governmental projects should quality for tax-exempt financing.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I look forward

to your questions.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman. We are pleased that you

are here as we are pleased that all the witnesses are here.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Decker follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. deMause, you said something in your testimony. Among the things you said that caught my attention, you

said that in New York the city government would have a case presented to it that said that the project involves private money, and

then the same project would go to the IRS and it would be said

that this is a publicly financed project. Could you go over that

again?

Mr. DEMAUSE. Sure. I was present at the New York City Council

Finance Committee hearing where the Yankees testified repeatedly

that the City Council should approve this project because all construction was being paid for with private money. This is the exact

same money that they then called PILOTs and said were generated.

Mr. KUCINICH. Payments in lieu of taxes.

Mr. DEMAUSE. Payments in lieu of taxes and told the IRS in

their request for Private Letter Ruling were substituting for generally applicable taxes.

Mr. KUCINICH. And the implications of that? That led to what?

Mr. DEMAUSE. The implications are that they got the Private

Letter Ruling and that they were able to get, to sell the bonds, and

they are now building the stadiums right now.

Mr. KUCINICH. Explain this for someone who may have just come

into this discussion, what this implications of this are. Let us try

to take this more into layman’s terms.

Mr. DEMAUSE. Sure, sure, absolutely. What happened here was

that the Yankees and the Mets decided that it was not politically

feasible to ask for public money for the stadium construction. They

asked for a lot of public money for land and infrastructure. They

asked for tax breaks. They asked for other things.

But they were building these stadiums that were in one case

about $600 million and in the other case about $1 billion, and they

decided that it was not politically feasible to go to the City Council

and say, we want public money. So they said we are building it all

with private money.

However, they did not want to have to use taxable bonds because

those are expensive. So they said, we have this tax deal worked

out. We think it is going to fly with the IRS where we can use taxexempt bonds, lower our costs by passing off some of the costs to

Federal taxpayers by calling these private payments. We are not

going to call them rent because if we call them rent, we are going

to trip the private activity trigger and we are not going to be able

to use tax-exempt bonds. We are going to call them PILOTs, and

therefore the IRS will say OK.

Mr. KUCINICH. Have you quantified what that means in terms of

how much Federal tax dollars end up going to subsidize this

project?

Mr. DEMAUSE. The numbers—I believe these are city numbers

which I think are a little bit low, but this is the best numbers that

we have—are that the Yankees stadium is subsidized by $44 million by the Federal Government in foregone taxes that otherwise

they would get from bond holders, and the Mets stadium, about

$32 million.

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Mr. KUCINICH. It is presented as privately financed, but the taxpayer subsidy ends up being somewhat hidden because of these private letters.

Mr. DEMAUSE. That is just the Federal tax subsidy, mind you.

That is the amount that their costs are reduced by using this Private Letter Ruling. There are, again, other tax breaks and other

subsidies that raise the public, the State and city costs.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. deMause and Dr. Sanders, would you comment on the concept of public purpose? What does that mean to

you?

It is obviously a euphemism. How does it work out?

Mr. DEMAUSE. Yes, to me, a public purpose is something that has

a broad public benefit. You know the primary beneficiary of the

new Yankee Stadium—let us just take that as an example—are the

New York Yankees. They are going to be reaping all the revenue

from it, and the public will get to go to games there, but they will

be paying at the box office for that.

There was a lot of discussion on the previous panels about comparing stadiums and, for example, you know, orchestras or museums, and my feeling is that if the Yankees were owned by a nonprofit corporation and tickets were free on Wednesdays to the public, there would be a much stronger case for a public purpose here.

But these are fundamentally private buildings. The lease with

the Yankees and the Mets says they get all the revenues from the

buildings. The city will not have access to them to use them for

other purposes. So they will be owned by the public in name, but

the public will have no use of it other than being able to buy a ticket and go in.

Mr. KUCINICH. Dr. Sanders.

Mr. SANDERS. Yankee Stadium is very clearly what it says it is.

It is a baseball stadium that serves the purposes and whose financial rewards return to the New York Yankees Baseball Club. That

is a private entity. It is a mechanism for allowing that private entity to make rather more money.

If the city of New York chooses to build a multipurpose facility

and operate that facility as a true multipurpose facility, making it

available for a variety of tenants and a variety of activities, then

we could see a case where that might be that we would be talking

about a multipurpose facility. We are not here. We are talking

about a baseball stadium.

The issue raised in the material from the New York Corporation

Council goes immediately to the point of whether a payment in lieu

of tax is, in fact, a general purpose tax revenue or amounts to a

short term arrangement, particularly given the way PILOT payment are defined contractually in New York City.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Sanders.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. deMause, Dr. Sanders, I want to state what I said in the beginning concerning the chairman’s interest in this and his holding

this hearing.

I greatly appreciate your issue identification and what you are

saying as a framework from which communities should look to in

making these decisions. I mean what you are highlighting, which

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I think is incredibly important, is that there are many communities

that undertake these types of projects that do so with inflated expectations and structures and deals that do not deliver, and they

should be very cautious in undertaking them.

When the city of Dayton undertook building the stadium which

we have built, they had first considered a deal for building a stadium that I was opposed to and voted against. Ultimately, the deal

did unwind that would have been a blank check by the community

and would have resulted in a stadium that there would have been

speculative performance and the community could have gotten

stuck.

The stadium that we did build, it was a different deal as you

heard Bob Murphy talk about. He spoke about the cap that we put

on the expenses to the city. In other words, the team took the risk,

not the community. The community had sources and uses on a regional basis that they agreed to.

The community does have access to the stadium. The city has a

certain amount of days in which they have access to the stadium.

When John Kerry came campaigning for President of the United

States, he campaigned at the stadium, and the community came in

and assembled in the stadium.

I tell you the story about the first deal to let you know I am not

a fan of these, and when I served as mayor, I was not a fan of the

convention center. But there is an aspect which we miss if we look

at them solely as a subsidy for the team. There is a much broader

impact on the community in having these amenities that it is very

difficult to capture. I notice in both of your testimonies and reviews, you don’t have.

One of the symbols for Rome when we look at tourist posters is

the Coliseum, and there is a reason. It is because it is a view of

the spirit and the way that people came together in Rome in a very

public way.

Mr. deMause, you say that this is just a substitution effect in economics, that you are cannibalizing from elsewhere in town entertainment dollars. Clearly, we don’t have any studies that would

show in towns where there are stadiums and sports facilities, that

there is any displacement spending, that their movie theaters

somehow sell less or the performing arts centers or the others

somehow have less.

What was important for my community was we did not have any

sports facility. We did not have any place for the community to congregate. There was no cannibalization because people were actually

taking those dollars and leaving town. They were going to Columbus. They were going to Cincinnati. They were going to Chicago.

They were going to other places that had an entertainment sports

option.

So the one thing I would just like to challenge you with is that

looking beyond just as you said, Mr. deMause, of there is no broad

public benefit. I mean you just blanketly stated that. That really

is not true, and it is not the experience of every community.

Your warnings of what communities should be concerned about

are important, but to go to the next step without real data that can

establish that none of the benefits that communities say they have

are there or that the down sides, as you have characterized them,

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are only present really sells the whole thing short as we look to a

Federal policy. Mr. Decker was saying certainly if you look to communities and what their needs are and the ability to make these

decisions, that is really where we need to look.

So if you can speak on that, I would really appreciate it.

Mr. DEMAUSE. OK, there are several questions there. Again, it is

a hearing.

As to whether there are studies on the substitution effect, it is

obviously difficult to measure because there is a lot of noise in the

data. There have been many attempts to do so, and I am happy to.

Mr. TURNER. Which is hard to just to say that it exists.

Mr. DEMAUSE. I am sorry?

Mr. TURNER. Which is hard then to conclude that it just exists.

Mr. DEMAUSE. We can definitely conclude that the substitution

effect exists because there is a finite amount of money.

Mr. TURNER. You can conclude it is something to be concerned

about, but you cannot conclude its impact.

Mr. DEMAUSE. I am sorry?

Mr. TURNER. You cannot conclude that it has an impact.

Mr. DEMAUSE. You can measure its impact, yes.

Mr. TURNER. I thought you just said that it was not measurable.

Mr. DEMAUSE. No, I did not say it was not measurable.

Mr. TURNER. Well, what did you say?

Mr. DEMAUSE. I said it was difficult to measure, but there have

been attempts to measure it.

Mr. TURNER. Attempts does not mean that it has been.

Mr. DEMAUSE. There have been attempts. I am not going to tell

you how to decide how successful they have been, but I will give

you an example if you will allow me.

Mr. TURNER. Please.

Mr. DEMAUSE. OK, in Toronto in 1994, when there was a baseball strike, all of a sudden people were not spending money on

baseball games. There was an absolute rush in other industries

such as video rentals, comedy clubs. Everyone else reported enormous increases in their business.

Mr. TURNER. Wait a minute. That is when something is closed.

You can’t show by that, that it would have been sustained or that

it had been taking moneys from those venues previously.

Mr. DEMAUSE. The assumption is that if people, when given a

choice to spend money on baseball are spending it on baseball and

when they are not given a choice to spend money on baseball, they

are spending it on something else. The assumption is, and it seems

a valid assumption to me.

Mr. TURNER. When it reopened, did it go down?

Mr. DEMAUSE. May I finish?

Mr. TURNER. Did it go down when it reopened?

Mr. DEMAUSE. May I finish?

Mr. TURNER. Please.

Mr. DEMAUSE. The assumption is yes, it did go down when it reopened to my knowledge.

Mr. KUCINICH. I didn’t hear that. The assumption is what?

Mr. DEMAUSE. I am sorry. The assumption is that people are

choosing to spend their money in one of two places, and I am happy

to send you studies. I don’t have them on me, but I have them at

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home. I am happy to send you studies looking at the substitution

effect.

I will absolutely agree with you that it is different in a city like

Dayton than it is in a city like Toronto or a city like Washington,

DC or New York. If you can cannibalize spending from somewhere

else, then that is good for you and it is bad for Columbus. I am

not sure that is a public interest from the Federal perspective, but

it might be good for Dayton.

However, I would caution you and other cities that the impact is

dramatically less than is claimed. So the quote by Allen Sanderson,

the University of Chicago economist who has looked at this, is that

you could do better by taking the money, the same amount of

money up in a helicopter and throwing it out the window over your

city, and I think that is a point well made. Not that you would be

going up in a helicopter, but that what else could you could you be

doing with this money and what else could you be doing to improve

Dayton and could you get a better bang for your buck?

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, I know it is just the two of us if you

could humor me for just a moment.

The difference, in effect, as you heard in the testimony, is there is a $250 million development that is planned around the baseball

stadium in an area where there was nothing in addition to two corporate headquarters that have moved in where there was nothing.

Even if you took the amount of money that was spent on the baseball stadium and the amount of public money that was spent on

the baseball stadium and offered that as a subsidy to all the businesses and to the development that is there, you would not have

attracted this development.

The people are coming to this development not because of the

subsidy that could have been offered to them instead of the stadium but because of the people that are coming down, the hundreds of thousands of people who were not there in this area before

that are now foot traffic and are there.

Mr. DEMAUSE. If that is true and if you are really leveraging the

money to create this other development, I think that is a great

deal. But I think that baseball stadiums and football stadiums in

particular are terrible catalysts for these purposes because of what

Joyce Hogi mentioned in her testimony earlier. They are dark most

of the year.

So if you were to take the money and put it into something, even

an arena which can at least be used 365 days a year if you have

to do something sports, that is generally a better investment, if not

something else like, you know, new street lights or better schools

or something else that can be used all 365 days a year.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, as I was saying before to both of

them and to you, I agree with everything that they say as to why

we should be concerned and how these deals can be a problem and,

to some extent, not deliver.

My concern is in trying to making the points with them, and I

appreciate, Mr. deMause, your concession of that. It is not necessarily true of every deal of every community. There really are

some, and Dayton could have done a bad deal and it could have resulted in a bad community. There are communities that do it.

There are those who do well.

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Taking a broad brush and then trying to do Federal policy is the

problem because some are good and some are bad.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. In the interest of providing as much time for both

sides, I have provided my friend with an extra 5 minutes because

I think that he has a point of view that needs to be heard.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank the gentlemen for being here to

answer these questions.

I think that what we have done today is we have opened up a

broad discussion of public policy with respect to taxpayer-financed

sports stadiums, convention centers and hotels.

I think it would be useful for this committee to have some followup work that would quantify city by city, project by project, the

amount of money the project involved, how much was taxpayer-financed, how much private financing was in it, what the measurable economic benefit was in the community in terms of jobs created. Perhaps rank it by the local economies, starting with the

dates that the projects started and ending the construction phase

with a general commercial phase afterwards.

I think it would be helpful if we could start to really look at some

numbers down the road. I know perhaps some of you have already

done that. We will gather the information and take it to a second

step.

Then Mr. Issa, I believe, had raised the issue about the campaigns that are presented to the public which assert that there will

be certain benefits if the public will agree to support the plan. So

I am interested in acquiring that information as well.

This has been a hearing of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee entitled, ‘‘Build It and They Will Come: Do Taxpayer-Financed Sports

Stadiums, Convention Centers and Hotels Deliver as Promised for

American Cities?’’

I want to thank Mr. Turner for his presentation.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, with your consent, I would like my

opening statement to be included in the record.

Mr. KUCINICH. Without objection, Mr. Turner’s opening statement will be included in the record.

I think that we have had a good discussion here, and we will continue.

Gentlemen, thank you and thanks to everyone who has participated in this hearing. The committee is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Bruce L. Braley and additional

information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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