This declaring my candidacy by bits and pieces is just annoying. Everyone knows that it is just a way to get free media exposure- everyone breathlessly reports that someone is considering forming a committee, and then that they have formed a committee, and then that they have a time period picked in which they will plan an announcement, and then a specific date picked for an important announcement, at that announcement they announce that they will decide by date X, and then they let out a...

This silliness of "it's not a cut if we just stick to the last budget" is getting old. The only way that's not a cut is if the governement can hold expenses at the same level. So, presumably those that think this isn't a cut assume that the government can just demand to buy fuel/electricity at 2009 prices, pay for health-care at 2009 prices, roll back all wages to 2009 levels, and pay all companies that do business with the state at 2009 rates (the business community would love that), etc....

1,564 words, and yet you give less than 30 to the view that there is no merit to public support for a private team. And, even those few words are in essence- let's first figure out a financing plan, and let the overall debate go on "organically".

Perhaps you, or someone at the Minnpost, needs to ponder the question as to who should be writing stadium articles. You consistently gloss over, or don't mention, the fact that a majority want no public financing. Sure, some may be the same...

Paul already hit on the biggest falacy- that dollars spent (and taxed) at the new stadium would somehow never be spent in the state were the stadium not there. That's simply not realistic. Since competing economists can generally spin the numbers to favor wither side, the truth is probably that the actual effect is miniscule, or at least lost in the noise of a large city's economy.

Jay- are you witholding your own analysis? You have written a book on this, surely you have opinions on...