As I posted previously, NYC is considering handing over more dough to America’s favorite – and possibly richest – pastime. Since then the plan to give tax breaks to Major League Baseball caught the attention of The New York Times. The Times story caught the attention of other reporters forcing Bloomberg to defending the MLB plan, including during his weekly call in show on Friday when he was asked why the city continues to subsidize baseball teams and big firms, like Merrill Lynch. (The Merrill Lynch deal has more holes than Swiss Cheese, but it was approved under Guiliani, not Bloomberg). The Mayor’s defense is, hey, we got a good deal at only spending $75 million (each) on Yankee and Shea (err…. Citi Field) Stadiums.What? I guess giving $150 million of someone else’s hard earned money is like chump change to the Mayor. And the Mayor neglected to mention his deals for Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, American Stock Exchange among others. But I wonder what the mayor’s defense would be if he had his facts straight? The real New York City figure is closer to $400 million – and that’s just for the Yankees. Throw in Shea Stadium and the teams are tapping into well over $1 billion in city, state and federal subsidies

All this from a man who built a business worth $4.7 billion and rejected a subsidy for his company’s new office tower in 2001 since location isn’t a “function of tax breaks.”

This entry was posted on March 3, 2008 at 9:02 pm and is filed under New York, Stadiums, Subsidies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.