Dan

Calabrese

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July 24, 2008

If Deficits Are So Bad, Why a Federal Earmark for Tiger Stadium?

Lots of people love venerable Tiger Stadium. Few love it more than I do.

I attended hundreds of Detroit Tigers games there – from the day in 1975 when I saw Hank Aaron just miss a home run as a Milwaukee Brewer, to the day in 1999 when Todd Jones, the Tigers’ closer then and now, struck out Carlos Beltran to finish off the Kansas City Royals and close the door on Tiger Stadium’s tenure as home of my favorite team.

But just because people love it doesn’t mean it’s a priority of the nation to preserve it. Don’t try telling that, however, to our spend-happy Congress, particularly Michigan’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow.

Levin and Stabenow, proud as your cat showing you the mouse she just caught, have announced that they’ve secured a $4 million federal earmark to pay for the preservation of 96-year-old Tiger Stadium’s playing field, as well as a small portion of the grandstand area behind home plate. The full Senate still needs to vote on the earmark, and it still has to pass the House and survive conference.

But even if it never gets any farther than it’s already gotten, this needs to be called out for what it is – a completely irresponsible waste of federal money.

It’s been known for some time that Tiger Stadium preservationists, fronted by beloved former broadcaster Ernie Harwell, were running out of time and options to raise the money they needed for the partial preservation. Letting the entire ballpark continue to stand was out of the question. The City of Detroit had already let Tiger Stadium twist in the wind for the nine years since the Tigers left it for shiny new Comerica Park, and even in a city famous for letting its historic buildings sit and rot, consensus had emerged that it was time to let go, and let the wrecking ball swing.

Harwell and his group were given a June deadline, then got an extension into August, to raise the funds necessary to keep the grandstand standing and the playing field intact. Everyone seems to love the idea, but no one was stepping forward with private funds. It seemed quite reasonable to assume that, come August, the entire stadium would come down absent the emergence of a private donor.

When I clicked my Tigers news link last weekend and saw a headline announcing that they had secured the money, I thought to myself, “I wonder who’s forking it over?” Then I saw where they’re getting it, and I thought, “Oh. I am.”

Presumably these funds will be administered by the U.S. Department of Whatever Makes Lots of People Feel Good and Happy. We certainly don’t need Tiger Stadium to protect national security or regulate interstate commerce. I would be sad if it disappeared entirely, but it is not the job of the federal government to keep me from being sad. I’d get over it.

What I can’t get over is the bald disingenuousness of members of Congress, who complain long and loud about federal deficits and now even want to raise the gas tax because they complain there is not enough money to maintain highways. That’s actually something the federal government is supposed to do, but they let the highways crumble and bemoan the lack of money, while they completely waste $4 million saving an old baseball stadium that does not need to be saved.

I understand that highway funds come from federal gas taxes, but that is only because Congress has decreed it to be so. They could change that tomorrow if they wanted to. Funds needed for actually essential federal functions could come from the same pool of funds the honorables waste on unnecessary priorities like saving ballparks.

If Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow really believed deficits were too high, or that the federal government didn’t have enough money to do everything it is supposed to do, they would not ask for a dime for an earmark to save Tiger Stadium. But they obviously don’t believe that. They just say it when it’s politically expedient to do so.

I wonder sometimes if this is really a serious country anymore. I hate to sound like one of those coming-disaster people, but the national debt is $9.5 trillion. The entire Gross Domestic Product is only $13 trillion. I have no idea how long it will take to pay this off, or if we ever will, but I know a little bit about being in debt and trying to pay it off, and the first thing you do is stop spending money for stuff you don’t need.

If the American people were really serious, and really had a clue, they would be enraged that the federal government would waste any amount of money on projects like Tiger Stadium, no matter how small. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow are counting on you to feel the opposite, and to regard them as heroes for saving the beloved, venerable old ballpark.

And I’m afraid they’re going to be right.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

This is Column # DC191. Request permission to publish here.