The #MNGOP’s Vikings Stadium Financing Disaster Continues #wilfare
A MN GOP group called something like the MN Corporate Welfare Coalition* is going after Governor Dayton on the day of the groundbreaking on the new Vikings stadium with a blog post titled: “Mark Dayton Fumbles on the Vikings Stadium Deal“.
Fumbles. Get it?
It’s almost as if the MN Jobs Coalition has forgotten who controlled the MN House & Senate in 2012. Does the MN Jobs Coalition know the party affiliations of Rep Lanning and Sen Rosen?
The MN GOP authored Vikings stadium bill in the MN House and the MN GOP authored Vikings stadium bill in the MN Senate were indeed disasters.
Can you believe that MN GOP Rep. John Kriesel’s gambling exploitation through e-pulltabs bill was used as the funding source? I testified at the Commerce Committee hearing about the pending e-pulltabs disaster, but the MN GOP majority committee passed along the highly questionable MN GOP authored financing scheme.
Why the heck did MN GOP Vikings stadium bill authors, Rep Manning (GOP) and Sen Rosen (GOP) agree to such ridiculousness?
Here’s an interesting Twitter exchange on this topic. Former Rep. John Kriesel appears to disagree with the MN Corporate Welfare Coalition about the role the Vikings stadium bill plays in Dayton’s current approval ratings:
Sen. Nienow broke this down for Kriesel:
As Nienow explained to Kriesel, it never was about whether folks wanted a new stadium. It was about who should pay for it, and how, and – should the public would put money in – is the funding source reliable?
This, not surprisingly, gave Kriesel crappy pants:
Again, it’s not a joke to commit the state to paying tens of millions in corporate welfare in order to subsidize your own entertainment. Especially when something as sketchy as e-pulltabs is used to do it:
The shine has come off the corporate Wilfare through gambling exploitation scheme that Rep Kriesel sold to the state:
Notice that this is a case of MN GOP folks attacking the MN GOP author of a MN GOP financing scheme for a MN GOP authored corporate welfare bill.
I can see why they’d rather blame Dayton for the financing mess, but Dayton didn’t write the bills, hold the committee hearings, or have a vote in the MN GOP controlled house or senate.
I think Rep Kriesel’s closing arguments on why he supported subsidizing the NFL with e-pulltabs explains why this was a MN GOP disaster. The first thing he does is choose to ignore the financing and instead focuses on how important it is to him to publicly subsidize his private entertainment:
Note that this video is hosted on the MN GOP’s official YouTube channel. As in, they’re proudly touting the financial disaster they created.
* I think their mission is to create minimum wage jobs with no healthcare on behalf of publicly subsidized corporations who support MN GOP candidates.
