Lawmakers attack Pentagon funding sports teams as 'paid patriotism'

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Politics | Wed Nov 4, 2015 3:15pm EST

Lawmakers attack Pentagon funding sports teams as 'paid patriotism'

WASHINGTON

The U.S. Congress is moving to shut down a scheme that lawmakers said funneled millions of taxpayer dollars from the Pentagon to professional sports teams for honoring American soldiers at sporting events.

Since 2012, the Pentagon paid out at least $6.8 million in contracts to teams in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer, according to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain and his fellow Arizona senator, Jeff Flake.

Dubbing the practice "paid patriotism," the Republican senators found that the Department of Defense had entered into at least 72 contracts with the professional teams to pay for ceremonies in packed stadiums.

Asked at a news conference whether the soldiers being honored were aware that the Pentagon was paying the teams, McCain said: "Obviously they did not know that their appearances were being used in a way that would monetarily benefit the teams that were sponsoring these events."

McCain said a massive military authorization bill moving through Congress will contain a provision prohibiting the Pentagon practice.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/04/us-usa-pentagon-sports-idUSKCN0ST2SF20151104

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I think there's another missing P there.

Phony paid patriotism.

[Fred Sanders]

2. Propaganda. Psych-OP's.

[tularetom]

3. Once in a blue moon McCain does the right thing

It's getting to the point where every major sporting event resembles May Day in the Kremlin, Munich in the thirties, or every day in Pyongyang.

Flyovers, military bands, service members singing the national anthem, it's all a bit overdone. I'm glad somebody wants to pull the plug on the funding because team owners will drop the bogus patriotism the minute they stop getting paid for it.

[tanyev]

4. Why did they cite 2012? Doesn't a lot of this stuff go back long before that?

7/11/12 U.S. Army to discontinue NASCAR sponsorship in 2013

The U.S. Army will not return to NASCAR next season, and the Congresswoman who has sought to end military sports sponsorship said she would meet today with National Guard officials to discuss their backing of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s team.

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., who tried last year to end military sports sponsorship programs before her amendment was defeated, commended Tuesday's announcement that the Army would end a 10-year run of sponsoring NASCAR

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/motor/nascar/story/2012-07-10/Army-wont-return-to-NASCAR-in-2013/56126666/1

I'm all for stopping it, but what took McCain and Flake so long to find it objectionable?