Cash-strapped Texas invests millions in.....wait for it..... Formula One racing scheme

[FourScore]

This article is a few days old, so maybe someone already posted it. Unbelievable though.

Fri May 13, 2:23 pm ET
Cash-strapped Texas invests millions in Formula One racing scheme
By Liz Goodwin

As Texas slashes education and other public spending due to a staggering projected deficit, the state plans to pay out $25 million in public funds each year for the next decade to lure Formula One auto racing to Austin...

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...But some teachers--many of whom are worried they'll lose their jobs over dramatic proposed cuts from the statehouse--told Bloomberg News that they don't understand why the state should take the seeming position that high-performance auto racing is more important than what they do. "I have to wonder why the state of Texas is all over funding for this racetrack and not the school-funding crisis," Austin German teacher Ewa Siwak told Bloomberg. Her job at Bowie High School is being cut. "Tax dollars for education should be a higher priority..."

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...But economists told the Austin-American Statesman that the economic value of a large event is almost always overstated by its planners--meaning that the city and state often do end up directly subsidizing private events, and that those events are often a net drain on the economy. Professor Craig Depken analyzed sporting events--many of them in Texas--and found that their economic benefit was on average only 10 percent of what planners had projected. (The paper also notes that Formula One is a multi-billion for-profit business, when other sporting groups such as the NCAA that have received subsidies are nonprofits.)

Regardless of whether the Formula One scheme ends up making the state money, Bloomberg's story isn't likely to come across as good PR for the move. "For $25 million a year, the state could pay more than 500 teachers an average salary of $48,000," the paper writes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110513/us_yblog_thelookout/cash-strapped-texas-invests-millions-in-formula-one-racing-scheme