It is not a $522 million gift. Pohlad contributes $139 million of the total cost, which is the third largest contribution an owner has ever given. The county pays $393 million through a small sales tax just for Hennepin County.

In essence, the county's portion is just like any other bonding bill for roads, infrastructure, schools, and even land for corporate campuses like Best Buy. The stadium leads to growth for Hennepin County that increases its revenue by much more than the small local tax it imposes on those who do business in the county. With the extra revenue, it gets to build more roads, better schools, hire better teachers, etc. This is an investment that will more than pay for itself within a year.

And the county gets to own the building and the land, which grows in value over time. The Pohlads pay for the maintenance of the building, and in exchange for their contribution, get parking and concession revenue, something they've never gotten much of in the Humpty Dumpty Dome.

Also, the county gets a 33 % stake in a sale of the team within 10 years of buiding the stadium, acknowledging that the franchise will appreciate after the stadium is built.

When all is said and done, Pohlad pays $139 million for his team to increase in value by $139 million. The only thing he gets out of it is an ability to increase his payroll by an estimated 20 percent, whcih should allow the team to compete. He does not get rich off of this. In fact, he's already spent  a million dollars a year in political action and lobbying in the 14 years of trying to get out of trying to play baseball in the corner of a football stadium.

You should have been there when the Mall of America was built, largely with taxpayer money, to subsidize a Canadian billionaire. Or how about the Best Buy campus? The county not only paid for the land, but condemned it first so that it could develop it against the wishes of its owners at the time. Who benefited from that? Well its billionire owner increased his net worth by a half a billion or so. I could go on and on. Most people don't have a problem with those kinds of developments because they bring jobs to the state. So why do they have a problem with sports teams asking for their share in infrastructure costs?

If not for sports, the only national media the state of Minnesota would get is on the Weather Channel. When you talk to people from other parts of the country, the first thing they talk about regarding Minnesota is how cold it is. The second thing is about our sports teams. The only reason anyone knows about the University of Minnesota is that it's in the Big Ten conference. Similarly, the only time Minnesota gets much coverage nationally is when there's a professional sporting event in the state. Without the infrstructure to at least break even and be competitive in the state, there would be no major league pro sports here. And except for a political or weather story once in a while, Minnesota would be just another fly over state.

I would think there are bigger issues to dump tea into the harbor over, such as government spying, the national debt, Vietnam II, environmental crisis, and political corruption. Stadiums are way down on my list of things to worry about.

I have masters degrees in Philosophy and Rhetoric. You don't have to take me to school over this. In fact, while I agree that calling you a commie is ad hominem, I have not used strawman arguments. I have restated your points verbatim and argued against them. I have not simplified them in order to make them easier to refute, as one would do in a strawman.

Mostly, I have stated my own position, which you have not attempted to refute. Instead, you have ironically used strawman arguments to call attention to bogus technicalities of my rhetoric. Perhaps you don't understand my rhetoric: I'm merely arguing for my position, which is contrary to yours, yet I think very compelling.

I'll state my position again: Every business in the state gets some assistance for infrastructure, start-up costs, and the like. The bigger the business, the bigger the assistance. I've called attention to MOA, Best Buy, Ford, Honeywell, Northwest Airlines as examples of businesses that got tons of government assistance. Most of these companies have CEOs or chairmen who are very rich men and whose compensation is enhanced by governental assistance.

It's just a fact of doing business in the modern world that companies get as much governmental support as they can and they go where they get the most to make the most money. And I've come to terms with this because it's generally good for the economy. If I was categorically against corporate welfare, I would be a hypocrite because the company I work for directly and indiretly benefits from the infrastructure and other benefits both state and local governments have to offer. Also, the extreme case of a state that refused all corporate welfare for 10 years, North Dakota, is pretty good proof that it's not really an option to be categorically against corporate welfare.

So much for my position. Now, where my positon conflicts with yours, as I have duplicated verbatim, is that I'm not all that bothered by baseball asking for its fair share of the infrastructure costs of doing business. And you are bothered by it. I think it's a drop in the bucket compared to other corporate welfare and it actually does a lot of public good, not the least of which is a healthy tax base for schools and things I really care about.

So there you have it. I have not argued against your position, which is how I can prove I have not used strawman arguments. I have only argued for my own position, and I've shown where our positions conflict, which should be pretty obvious by now.

That is all I have to say about that.