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Unimpeachable Witness

Why impeach?

Go ahead, try to think of a reason for the GOP to engage in presicide. I am writing this column before Bill Clinton's schedule testimony, and you are reading it afterward. (Such is life with a Monday press day.) Moreover, perhaps after these words are zapped from Washington to New York, the secrets of the most famous stain since the Shroud of Turin will be revealed. But regarding the question at hand, more information is unlikely to change the fundamental calculus.

The Republicans have no compelling interest to boot Bill. Just as the Democrats were delighted to see House Republicans re-annoint Newt Gingrich as Speaker after he was caught supplying false information to the ethics committee (for which the mug had to pay a $300,000 sanction), GOPers will be happy to have a scandal-scarred lame duck (that is, a lamer duck) leading the Democrats. The conventional take is that the Republicans don't want to provide Vice President Al Gore a head-start on the 2000 campaign by enabling him to spend quality time in the Oval Office. There may be a smidgeon of truth to that -- and to the view that Republicans fear they will become the target of public revulsion should they attempt to dethrone Clinton for (allegedly) living out his adolescent fantasies. Some GOP leaders might also fret about a sex police free-for-all in Washington--though reports of a scorched-earth Democratic get-even strategy are exaggerated. (Those whispers reflect Democratic sentiment rather than the existence of an ammo-ready plan.) But there's another reason why smarter Republicans don't want to impeach Clinton: he's of use to them.

When Congress reconvenes in September, there's likely to be a few tussles between the President and the Republicans over spending bills and taxes. Already both sides are manuevering to blame the other for the possible government shut-down. But after all that hollering is finished and the inevitable compromise is cut -- and after the congressional elections -- Washington is going to turn to the monster of all policy matters: Social Security. The aim of Republicans, Wall Street, and corporate-funded think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute is to exploit public anxiety over the future of the retriement program -- anxiety out of step with the true numbers -- to privatize a portion, if not most, of Social Security. And Clinton has hinted that he is open to limited privatization.

What could Republicans want more than a Democratic president blessing the concept of privatizing Social Security? Clinton may only go for a small dose of privatization, if at all. But even that would be a tremendous conceptual victory for privateering conservatives. In years hence, they then will be well-positioned to further privatize the program, especially if they can ever again take the White House. (Saying yes to Social Security privatization will be much tougher for Gore, who in the presidential primaries has to obtain the support of traditional Democratic constituencies, groups which oppose privatization and understand that it's a ruse.)

This is big-money politics. We're talking about allowing Wall Street managers to get their mitts on hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe more. Only the Republican yahoos who cannot repress their visceral hatred of the Clintons would trade messy impeachment hearings for a policy advance that grants Wall Street partial access to this mountain of money.

Kenneth Starr apparently is going to make it easy for the GOPers to duck impeachment. According to leaks -- or, "sources say" -- the report he intends to send to Congress will cover only Monicagate. Not Whitewater. Not Travelgate. Not Filegate. (Are we missing any other gates?) If his report is indeed just Monica (which to much of the public still means just sex), the wiser Republicans on the Hill will treat it like an invitation to a Ted Kennedy fundraiser and not RSVP. Only if incontrovertible evidence emerges that Clinton committed perjury before the grand jury (as opposed to in his deposition in a civil case), might non-yahoo Republicans feel compelled to go through the impeachment motions. But they won't be happpy about it. Unless the Clinton poll numbers collapse, these guys will look for any excuse possible to avoid being sucked into that sleazy spectacle.

Are you a Klinton Krazy still holding out hope? The elections are an impediment, as well. If Starr does manage to get an all-Monica report to Congress next month, before the legislators leave town, the Republicans would not wish to proceed down the impeachment path so close to the elections. How political and partisan would that look? Polls show that respondents hold contradictory and often-shifting opinions about Congress and politics, but one point is usually consistent: most Americans hate what they consider to be partisan bickering. (They don't realize it's a glorious and essential part of the system. In fact, on many fronts, we need more rather than less.) And Starr remains highly unpopular; impeachment activity based on a just-sex report from him probably would not play well in the polls. A Republican move on impeachment could cause a backlash that encourages voters to support Democrats. Also, the fall elections likely will effect the chances of impeachment. For instance, if the Republicans lose a few seats in the House, any move on their part toward impeachment would seem an ugly power grab designed to achieve what they could not obtain on election day.

Impeachment is a political act. Most politicians care more about professional preservation than principle. Unless there is a major shift in the saga or the polls, the President, when it comes to impeachment, is untouchable.

Sports Socialism

So while we're waiting for those DNA tests and the fall-out (or lack thereof) from the President's scheduled testimony, let's talk baseball.

The Bronx Browbeater, George Steinbrenner, is pushing New York to construct a new stadium for him and his Yankees. (Will it be called The House That Sucker-Taxpayers Built?) This is nothing more than stadium socialism. Across the country, it's been a growing green menace for years: communities bear the cost of building an arena, and the club owners -- good and loyal citizens who threaten to relocate the team in order to squeeze millions out of the public treasurey -- keep the profits. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a small Washington think tank, has been pushing an alternative to hitting up taxpayers for stadiums. Instead, it proposes, let the fans buy the teams.

In a recent report, the Institute lacerates the argument that it is good business for localities to shell out millions for stadiums. Sports teams generate little additional local tax revenue and spending, and they mainly create a small number of low-wage, seasonal jobs. A study conducted by economists Andrew Zimbalist and Roger Noll found that professional teams have a tiny (sometimes even a negative) effect on economic activity and employment. Even my favorite park, Baltimore's Camden Yard, is a taxpayer rip-off. The Institute cites a report estimating that this beautiful stadium (it glows during twilight) generates $3 million in economic benefits but costs Maryland taxpayers $14 million a year. Subsidies for stadiums are not the same thing as NEA grants. Stadiums, even Camden Yards, are not works of art that need a helping of federal Miracle-Gro in order to survive. No, in these schemes, someone's making money, but it's not the citizens forced to pony up.

Voters get this, and in cities across the country, notably San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, they have rejected ballot measures that would have publicly financed stadiums. (In Wisconsin, the state legslature passed a $160 million stadium plan anyway.) In Seattle, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, did succeed in his campaign to obtain voter approval for publicly funding a new home for his Seattle Seahawks. But he won in a 51-49 squeaker after outspending the opposition $5 million to $130,000. One estimate noted that Allen, the third wealthiest organism on the planet, could have paid for the stadium on his own with only six weeks' worth of his earnings. Yet he yearned for taxpayer dollars.

As the Institute points out, it often is a better deal for cities to purchase the teams outright. For example, the Tennessee Oilers won between $220 and $292 million in public subsidies, yet the team's value was about $159 million. In 1992, when the Baltimore Orioles turned to Marylanders for $210 million, the franchise was worth probably a little more than the $70 million paid for it three years earlier.

There is a good track-record for fan-owned teams. The most illustrative and well-known example is the Green Bay Packers. Seven minor-leauge baseball teams are owned by their communitiies. But, no surprise, the National Footbal League officially banned any additional community ownership in 1961. And Major League Baseball has an informal ban. (In the 1980s, the owners blocked Joan Kroc, the widow of Ray "McDonald's" Kroc, from donating the Padres to San Diego.) Last year, Representative Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, introduced legislation in the House that would override league rules against public ownership. But the bill has not even made it to the on-deck circle. In Minnesota, legislator are hawking a measure that would have the state buy the Twins and sell a majority to the fans.

Owners have become virtuosos at playing stadium blackmail: gimme, gimme, gimmee, or I'm taking my ball and playing elsewhere. Steinbrenner's trying to pull the same routine, and Rudy Giuliani wants to reach into taxpayer pockets so he can enrich Steinbrenner and not be blamed for losing the Yankees. If he wants local sports teams to remain part of the NYC community, perhaps he ought to contact the Institute and then start squawking in Albany and Washington about the rules that rig the game and prevent fan ownership. After all, if we're going to have sports socialism, let's truly have it and permit those who ante up to root for and share in the home team.

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