The Yankees want a Handout

Taxes suck. When you work in New York City you get the tax triple whammy, the fed, the state, and the city all take their cuts. I understand taxes are necessary to run government and provide valuable services to all citizens. What taxes are not for is building multi-billion dollar baseball stadiums. So you can imagine  my surprise that the Yankees are asking the city for another $350-400 million on top of the $900 million we already gave them.  To top it off,  the way the Yankees asked for the money. Actually it was more like a demand concluding with threats that the stadium won't be finished without the money. I am sure if the city doesn't pony up the money Hank will find investors somewhere.

Now in my opinion, one of two things need to happen: 1) Bloomberg should tell the Yanks to have A-Rod pay for the balance on the new stadium. or 2) 8 million New Yorkers should have a say the next time the Yankees what to try to spend their way to the world series. (that should be in about 2 months when their pitching staff really starts to have problems. CMW is out indefinitely and having no idea what the young kids will do, getting a quality starter has just become necessary to get to the playoffs.) 

$350 million is a lot of money that could do a lot of good for this city. Improving education and infrastructure should be the top priorities for the city over the next ten years. Preserving the naming rights to a baseball stadium in the Bronx should not be a priority. After all the Mets are having Citigroup pay for a portion of their new stadium.

I think the Yankees could survive with a stadium that costs $1.3 billion to build. (This is the current tab on the stadium thus far.) I hope Bloomberg doesn't cave and give the Steinbrenners their handout.