"Tea party battles business over Braves stadium"

[applegrove]

Tea party battles business over Braves stadium

By BILL BARROW at AP

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/tea-party-battles-business-over-braves-stadium

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ATLANTA (AP) — A deal for hundreds of millions of dollars in public money to draw the Atlanta Braves north of their downtown home is pitting conservative tea party activists against the elected and civic leaders in the staunch Republican county, with opponents saying the use of public money to help a private business is not what American capitalism should be about.

The argument for the deal is simple, says Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee and other supporters. Almost $400 million in county bonds and immediate infrastructure improvements, with debt payments approaching $600 million over 30 years — will generate enough economic activity and, thus, tax revenue to justify the spending.

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Nonsense, says Atlanta Tea Party Leader Debbie Dooley, whose group has a Cobb chapter.

It's all "appalling hypocrisy" and "arrogance," Dooley explained, particularly from the four Republican commissioners who pitch their conservative credentials and champion the idea of a free market. Dooley and other tea partiers typically associate active, expensive government with Democrats, but it was the commission's lone Democrat who cast the only dissenting vote.



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[Dawson Leery]

1. The Koch's never intended for the tea party to do this.

[truebluegreen]

3. I'm sure they didn't.

You would think--after, for example, our recent excellent adventures abroad--these people would realize that things don't always turn out the way they plan. Even when they have all the money in the world.

[tularetom]

2. Well, I agree with the tea party on this one

Public funds should never be used to build arenas for professional sports franchises.

And this one has overtones of racism as well as sleazy team owners in bed with sleazy politicians. Seems that some of the team's more affluent fans are distressed at having to drive through a minority neighborhood in order to attend games in their luxury boxes and they pressed the owners to try to move the franchise to a suburban county populated by people of the caucasian persuasion.

[840high]

4. You might be right. On top

of that we don't need a new stadium.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Even though the teabagger is 'right', I'm certain it's for the entirely wrong reasons

Because no RW repub would pass up the chance to shit all over the so-called "business unfriendliness" of Dem-controlled, minority-heavy Fulton County...

Dooley is either a NIMBY or she's scared that the unwashed masses of color will learn how to read a MARTA map and make their way up to Marietta 81 times a year...

[xulamaude]

6. Overtones of racism, yes!

I worked at, and lived within walking distance, of the stadium some years ago.

The jobs (such as they are/were) are an absolute necessity for the working poor in Atlanta.

Cobb county can bite me.