Welfare for Billionaires Watch: Florida Marlins want a $600 M stadium paid for by the taxpayers..

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We've already lost the fight up here in Orlando to keep Rich DeVos from getting his $500 M taxpayer funded basketball arena for the Magic (in a total package costing $2 B for new unneeded venues in Orlando) meanwhile our economy has taken a devastating down turn in Orlando (as some of us predicted to the council and commission in 2007 when they took the vote) and basic gov't services are being cut so that this out of state conservative Republican Amway billionaire can get a new stadium to stroke his ego.

Up in Minneapolis, they just finished building the Twins a $776M stadium not long before the bridge collapse up there. Perhaps MN and Minneapolis should have invested in bridge renovations instead?

Now it's Miami's turn..with the owner of the Marlins. Well actually the owner of the Marlins has tried blackmailing South Florida over and over again for this and he's back at it again in the midst of a world wide depression - he wants HIS welfare check from the government in the amount of $600 MILLION dollars.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/17/eco.baseball/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

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"To sit here and take monies that we're not even sure are going to be there and put them towards a stadium that really is for the benefit of a private, for-profit enterprise is just the wrong time period. The end," he said.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez is one of the chief supporters of the stadium.

"We will have a major league baseball team here for the next 35 years," he said. "We will have, in the short term, 1,000, 2,000 jobs in the construction area."

Alvarez says the stadium construction is as good a stimulus as there is in a community where construction is down 16 percent.

"What is the stimulus money going to do?" he asked with a smile. "You're investing money in projects to create jobs. What's the stadium? A major project that creates jobs. That's exactly what it is."

The City of Miami Commission voted Thursday by a 3-2 margin to move forward with the building of the stadium. Miami-Dade County will also have to put it to a vote, which may come next week.

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