Saying his constituents were adamant about not wanting the Vikings to leave Minnesota, Rep. Tom Hackbarth, R-Cedar, said his plan would propose a constitutional amendment, asking voters in 2010 whether revenues from a new casino should be used to finance a new stadium.

There are so many problems with this that I barely know where to start. Okay, how about this: A constitutional amerndment to build a football stadium?! I thought making policy decisions was what legislators were supposed to do. Do we really need to bring the constitution into this?

Putting aside the procedural issues, I would sure hope that the Vikings aren’t going to get one penny from this state while we’re in a fiscal crisis. If we were going to raise new revenues from any source — even from legalized gambling — would we really want to waste them on football? We have to come up with over $4 billion in spending cuts or revenue increases this year, and we can’t afford to waste any of that on stadiums. Any new revenues, by whatever means they’re raised, can be used in much more responsible ways.

Finally, there’s the problem of using “sin taxes” to pay for the stadium. I don’t have a problem with legalizing gambling, but we shouldn’t be legalizing it just to raise revenues. The growth in “sin taxes” during the Pawlenty administration is the result of our failure to pass a structurally-sound budget. Sin taxes are more politically palatable than taxes that spread costs across the entire population, but they’re simply not good policy. They only make sense when used to pay for the public costs of that particular “sin,” such as cigarette taxes that go towards healthcare.

All in all, I hope this bill is a non-starter. This just isn’t the time to talk about football stadiums. The Vikings and their supporters would be wise to take a break from lobbying for a new stadium.