‘Trust but verify’ on privately financed Broncos stadium

By Jon Caldara

Only about a month and a half ago I predicted the Denver Broncos will use the subtle threat of leaving Colorado to get taxpayers to build them a new stadium.

In other words, I predicted history will repeat itself. Football stadiums are on a rotating 25-year life cycle with taxpayers buying these playpens so the ultra-wealthy can let their boys concuss one another.

Apparently, Denver Broncos ownership wishes to make me look foolish, (not a high bar; watch me dance).

So, after my poorly timed column ran, The Denver Broncos announced their plans to privately finance a new stadium in the heart of the city.

If they are good to their word, it will be a refreshing and rare example of an ownership group respecting both taxpayers and fans. Their announcement caught me off-guard. Even I had to be impressed.

But until the entire deal is signed in permanent ink, I will take my lead from Ronald Reagan to “trust but verify.” In other words, let’s see the details

The joint statement from the Broncos’ owners, the governor and the mayor of Denver was, after all, a well word-smithed work of craftsmanship: “In the spirit of a true civic partnership, the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group will privately fund this investment and work with the community, city and state to reconnect historic neighborhoods — with no new taxes.”

The magic words of course being, “with no new taxes.” These words have been used before to lull voters into whopping tax increases. In fact, the Denver Broncos under its previous ownership used that very phrase to get us to pay for their current stadium.

After Coors Field was basically paid for, meaning the 0.1% sales tax was set to expire, voters were asked to continue that tax to pay for Sports Authority-Invesco-Empower-Acme-Explosives-and-Road-Runner-Traps Field at Mile High.

If you keep a current tax from sunsetting, can you with a straight face say that it’s not a new tax? Bond dealers can. But of course, it’s a new tax.

We can only hope the Broncos’ owners aren’t eyeing some expiring tax to continue. Remember what happened after George H.W. Bush broke his “no new taxes” promise. History was rightfully unkind.

Also, new tax is different from new debt. It’s one thing for the Walton-Penner family to take out a mortgage for their stadium, it’s another thing if we somehow pick it up.

Since money is fungible, we should be careful of the shell game where taxpayers don’t pay for a new stadium but instead pay for all the improvements and new development around it.

With all that as a warning, we all should show our gratitude to the owner’s group for their rejection of corporate welfare by at least forgiving their loss to the Colts. (Really, the Colts?)

Now let’s get down to the shameful, depraved and totally un-American issue with the new proposed stadium.

Football is a war. Maybe a battle performed for our amusement, but a war all the same. It’s war played out on the gridiron. There are aerial assaults, long bombs, crushing ground offensives fighting for every inch. It’s war baby. (For the uninitiated I recommend George Carlin’s classic take of football versus baseball.)

And war is not fought indoors; chess tournaments and ping-pong matches are.

Football. Isn’t. Played. Inside.

At least real football isn’t. Although now that breathing too hard on the quarterback is “roughing the passer” and kickoffs look like a pee-wee T-Ball game, we might need to prevent a little snow giving a linebacker the sniffles

I get it. The Walton-Penner family wants a stadium with a retractable roof to allow events like concerts to happen year-round. They’d like to land a Super Bowl here. All very understandable. And all an insult to everything that makes America, well, America.

The Buffalo Bills are building a new stadium without a roof. For a quick reminder, Buffalo NY makes Denver look like Pasadena. Colorado is home to dueling cowboys, towering, rugged mountain peaks where the battle of the fittest plays its life-and-death game and men don’t lift their little pinky when they drink coffee.

Are we going to be out macho-ed by, by, well, New Yorkers?

Maybe a tax subsidy to make the stadium open-air could fit into my libertarian mindset somehow. I’ll ask our “libertarian” governor for advice.