Our national pastime has become a national indecency.

Granted, there are things worse than a public indecency: tragedies, atrocities, high crimes. But still, public indecencies irritate and disappoint ? especially when they are cheered.

In Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony A. Williams announced his plans to build a 41,000-seat, city-financed baseball stadium at a price tag of $440 million to entice the Montreal Expos to make the nation's capitol their home. And the people cheer.

Well, that's what the newspapers printed, anyway. No one I knew broke out in jubilation. But I'm sure a lot of people are very glad to hear that professional baseball will be back to Washington, after over thirty year in hiatus. Under other circumstances, I'd be cheering now, too.

But, with the current deal, any gain for District sports fans will be offset by the further erosion of a sense of decency in public policy.

Today we hardly bat an eye when a large enterprise like a sports stadium is started not by business people, but by politicians. Or when one of the poorest-run cities in the nation distracts itself from improving its badly provided essential services to engage in what has become a rich-man's luxury. Or when we see captains of industry reduced from creators of wealth to welfare addicts.

The Game Plan

It's not a done deal. Williams and his cronies still have to face a somewhat skeptical D.C. city council. Yet no one seems confident that the purchasing of city council support, by one nefarious manner or another, can be prevented.

As usual, the proponents are carefully preparing the finances to make it look like "somebody else pays." The $440 million cost of the stadium would come from selling bonds. But bonds actually have to be paid back ? in this case, from annual lease charges of $5.5 million to the baseball team's owners, taxes on in-stadium goods, and taxes on the gross receipts of area businesses that make more than $3 million per year.

The lease payments are a sweetheart deal for the baseball team, even far sweeter than the deals other politicians are awarding to other teams on the baseball dole. And surely, the team could pay for its own stadium from the barrels of dough raked in on concessions, not just a small percentage of tax heaped on top.

Yet, the most ridiculous notion is that taxes on Washington's most successful businesses will mean that the average citizen gets free baseball and a free stadium. Why don't we get these big businesses to wipe out world poverty while they're at it?

Businesses, both large and small, have an interesting way of dealing with increased costs of doing business, of which taxes are one. They raise their prices. Who do politicians think provides the $3 million or more these businesses now pull in annually? Or, they reduce costs ? and likely employment. Finally, businesses can move or choose not to locate in any city that thinks it smart to rob successful businesses to pay ransom to other wealthy moguls.

To mask the stench of this rich-man's deal ? of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich ? the mayor offers a whiff of the sweet flower of philanthropy. Through his great public wizardry, he has negotiated a subsidy so that poor children can attend these now high-priced baseball events.

But a certain stench remains.

Politicians Lob a Spit Ball

In the end, the argument is that this kind of subsidy creates jobs and profits and thus "pays for itself."

Of course, it doesn't. The so-called economics used to justify these subsidies to major league sports are worth less than the literary value of infield chatter. A simple truth remains: When it is economical to invest in a stadium, private enterprise will do so. When it is not, then it shouldn't be done. Continued...