The ongoing saga of the new Vikings stadium illustrates much of what is wrong with our political system today. Voters disapprove of giving hundreds of millions of dollars to a billionaire to run his profitable business. Politicians know how the voters feel, and are trying to position themselves so they won’t take the brunt of the blame. Yet somehow, the possibility that we might simply say no never really occurs to anyone.

For the last decade in Minnesota, we’ve been telling citizens they must sacrifice. We’ve slashed funding for higher education, local government aid, health care, and more. We’ve cut state and local government to the bone, eliminating government programs while property taxes and user fees soar. And yet a new Vikings stadium seems inevitable. 

We’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a Vikings stadium when we owe our own schools over $2 billion. How is it possible that our priorities are so warped?

That’s just the way our system works these days. As a huge, monied interest, the Vikings and billionaire Zygi Wilf are top priorities. Making the rich richer comes before our true responsibilities. In fact, it’s even worse than that. Because of the expense of this corporate welfare, our students, our local governments, and our roads and bridges will have to be set aside.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone that’s been watching Minnesota politics. It’s just business as usual.