Screw investigating steroids, Congress needs to look at how cities screw themselves over sports stadia

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., walks past a poster of Rafael Palmeiro testifying before the House Government Reform Committee during the steroids hearings. Davis announced the committee would not recommend a perjury investigation of Palmeiro. (AP photo) Nov 10, 2005. From "Report doubts Palmeiro: Ex-Oriole's steroid defense undercut; clubhouse 'a mess'"in the Baltimore Sun.

Today's Post has this article, "Baseball Opposes D.C. Stadium Rent Deal: Snag Delays Ballpark Lease, Team Sale," which discusses how Major League Baseball doesn't want to sign a lease with a provision requiring that the team pay $6 million/year in rent regardless of conditions.

This from a corporation that negotiated away hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from the Washington Nationals by signing an agreement with Peter Angelos/Baltimore Orioles forcing the Nationals to participate in a joint television operation with 2/3 of the control and revenue vested in the Orioles.

Major League Baseball wants and gets it so many ways that it is particularly disgusting.

Why isn't Congress, and maybe the Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census of the House Committee on Government Reform, looking at these kinds of issues--how professional sports leagues clean the clocks of starry-eyed and foolish local government officials when negotiating over these kinds of issues?

(Also see this related article--"Mayor Criticized for Role In Deutsche Bank Event," "D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams is participating this weekend in a London conference co-sponsored by Deutsche Bank, which is negotiating with the city over a plan to invest $246 million in a new baseball stadium.")

Also see "More on stadia: Juicy info from Indianapolis," and the website Field of Schemes., as well as this Urban Agenda blog entry on Rep. Mike Turner from Ohio, chair of the Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census.