John Stossel

 It's Robin Hood in reverse. Politicians take money from taxpayers and give it to people like Reinsdorf and George W. Bush. (Years ago, Bush, along with his fellow owners of the Texas Rangers, got taxpayers to build the team a stadium.)

 I confronted Governor Thompson: Wasn't he just taking money taxpayers were forced to give the government and giving it to a rich friend?

 "It wasn't our tax money," he said. "I mean, the whole baseball field is built on the hotel/motel tax. Chicagoans don't pay hotel/motel tax. Guys from New York like you pay hotel/motel taxes. What a great deal."

 Not for the out-of-towners, it isn't -- and not for the Chicago businesses where they might have spent the money. Thompson's reasoning is as muddled as the fallacy in economist Frederic Bastiat's story of the broken window:



 Subsidizing stadiums is equally foolish.

John Stossel
