Bucks Arena Plan Politics

Politics make strange bedfellows and perhaps nowhere is that better illustrated than in Milwaukee, where the desire for a new arena for the city’s NBA team intersects with presidential ambitions of a (usually) small-government, anti-tax advocate.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker finds himself in the position of supporting a plan to keep the Milwaukee Bucks in town, with taxpayers picking up half the cost of a new $500 million arena under a financial deal that would rely on current and former team owners for the rest, Walker said June 4. Add to the mix a propos. The team issued a statement, calling the financing plan “a big step forward in our collective effort to build a transformative economic and cultural asset in downtown Milwaukee.” The arena has been pitched as part of a larger $1 billion entertainment project. Republicans who control the Legislature criticized parts of the plan and questioned if there are enough votes to approve it.

And conservatives – including Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group founded by billionaires Charles and David Koch – have said the deal is a bad one for taxpayers. A majority of Republican state senators don’t want the arena financing plan to come under the two-year $70 billion state budget, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. An alternative could be introducing the plan as a separate bill, where Democrats would join with Republicans to get enough votes in support.