With dozens of professional sports stadiums built in the past decade, and many more on the way, it is time to put a halt to public-funded stadiums due to their lack of economic productivity. This is what Raymond Keating argues in his 1997 editorial ‘We Wuz Robbed! The Subsidized Stadium Scam.’ He believes that since taxpayers continue to lose more and more money from taxes and subsidies each year, Congress should eliminate tax breaks for financing stadium construction.
Keating begins not by arguing whether he’s for or against stadium subsidies, but instead focusing on how baseball season is approaching, which is something “all right-thinking Americans” love. By doing this, he’s being unifying instead of divisive while appealing to the …show more content…
He goes in-depth on four cities (Seattle, Milwaukee, New York, and San Francisco) that had been in-talks with their city and and state governments within the past 12 months to discuss subsidies for stadiums. Keating appeals to the reader’s line of reasoning this time by laying out the facts of what took place in each city and why it was detrimental to the taxpayers. His argument is that the government should no longer be involved in the stadium construction business, which he does a solid job of proving. The statistics he provides show that the government constantly runs over-budget when involved with construction projects and that they continue to drag on over time. Keating continues to strengthen his case when he appeals to readers’ ethics in multiple ways. He first uses it as an argument against the subsidies by showing how governments hold people against their will, as was the case in Seattle. City officials ignored the vote against a new stadium to replace the Kingdome and opted to instead move forward with plans for a new stadium and parking garage, exceeding $400 million. He then uses ethics to describe the dilemma that officials are in when deciding whether to approve funding. Officials can either vote for against a new stadium, an economically-smart decision but risk losing support from sports fans if their beloved teams relocate, or vote in favor of a new stadium and risk losing support from anti-stadium voters. This was the case in Milwaukee when Senator George Petak changed his mind at the last second and voted for the construction of Miller Park, which eventually led to him losing his re-election and the GOP losing its majority in the Wisconsin Senate. One other thing that’s worth pointing out is his diction when referring to politicians. Throughout the parallelism, Keating refers to them not by their job title but instead their
Keating begins not by arguing whether he’s for or against stadium subsidies, but instead focusing on how baseball season is approaching, which is something “all right-thinking Americans” love. By doing this, he’s being unifying instead of divisive while appealing to the …show more content…
He goes in-depth on four cities (Seattle, Milwaukee, New York, and San Francisco) that had been in-talks with their city and and state governments within the past 12 months to discuss subsidies for stadiums. Keating appeals to the reader’s line of reasoning this time by laying out the facts of what took place in each city and why it was detrimental to the taxpayers. His argument is that the government should no longer be involved in the stadium construction business, which he does a solid job of proving. The statistics he provides show that the government constantly runs over-budget when involved with construction projects and that they continue to drag on over time. Keating continues to strengthen his case when he appeals to readers’ ethics in multiple ways. He first uses it as an argument against the subsidies by showing how governments hold people against their will, as was the case in Seattle. City officials ignored the vote against a new stadium to replace the Kingdome and opted to instead move forward with plans for a new stadium and parking garage, exceeding $400 million. He then uses ethics to describe the dilemma that officials are in when deciding whether to approve funding. Officials can either vote for against a new stadium, an economically-smart decision but risk losing support from sports fans if their beloved teams relocate, or vote in favor of a new stadium and risk losing support from anti-stadium voters. This was the case in Milwaukee when Senator George Petak changed his mind at the last second and voted for the construction of Miller Park, which eventually led to him losing his re-election and the GOP losing its majority in the Wisconsin Senate. One other thing that’s worth pointing out is his diction when referring to politicians. Throughout the parallelism, Keating refers to them not by their job title but instead their