Today, it’s the Wisconsin Center District, which (mis)manages the Midwest Airlines Center, making with the waterworks. Head flack Franklyn Gimbel is blaming the lack of a new state budget tax increases at the state level for his inability to beg for increased taxes at the local level to pay for a second expansion of the MAC. The MAC is currently subsidized by a 3% tax on car rentals in Milwaukee County, a 0.25% tax on “restaurant” food and beverage sales (actually applied to all taxable food and beverage sales) in Milwaukee County, a 2% tax on hotel rooms in Milwaukee County and another 7% tax on hotel rooms in the city of Milwaukee.
I have two things to say to Gimbel and company, beyond “No more taxes!”, that is:
– You idiots knew in 1999, before the first expansion was complete, the MAC was undersized and would be undersized after that first expansion.
– Instead of wasting something north of $45 million on turning the old Auditorium into an underutilized “theatre”, you morons could have used that money to complete that planned-for second expansion.
