At least we can be confident that the government is focused on what’s really important.
WASHINGTON – House lawmakers are gearing up for a vote as soon as next week on a bill aimed at forcing a national college-football playoff.
Approval of the legislation by an Energy and Commerce subcommittee would represent the most significant action yet by Congress in its oversight of college football. The plans for a markup next week – still tentative as of late Friday – appeared to signal growing congressional support for the idea, which President Barack Obama also backed during the 2008 campaign.
And here is part of the bill, HR 390: College Football Playoff Act of 2009 –
(1) college football games, including post-season football games, depend upon competition between college and university teams traveling in interstate commerce;?
(2) the competitions involve and affect interstate commerce and are therefore within Congress’s constitutional authority to regulate;?
(3) the total economic impact in the host cities from the 5 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) games in January 2008 was estimated at more than $1.2 billion;?
(4) collegiate athletic conferences whose teams participate in each BCS bowl game share $17.5 million in revenue;?
(5) the BCS system recognizes the important economic impact to a city hosting the BCS championship game and therefore rotates it among cities; and?
(6) the colleges and universities whose teams participate in the post-season football bowls experience significant financial windfall including increased applications for enrollment, recruiting advantages, increased alumni donations, and increased corporate sponsorship that provides a competitive advantage over universities whose teams are ineligible or statistically at a disadvantage from the BCS bowl competitions because of their conference affiliation.
Translation:
2 – They live in America, we should regulate and tax them.
3 – They have money! We want some!
Shifting FHA guidelines, HVCC, bank failures, unemployment … do a search for “health insurance” on GovTrack – there are 2475 bills … and this is what the House debates?
Why don’t they do this crap in their free time?
What does this have to do with real estate? Directly, not very much. Indirectly, this represents yet another example the government interjecting themselves and interfering in American life.
At what point do we say, “enough is enough”?
Contact your Representative, start with the co-sponsors of this bill.
Rep. Joe Barton [R-TX6] (Sponsor)
John Carter [R-TX31]
Michael McCaul [R-TX10]
Gary Miller [R-CA42]
Bobby Rush [D-IL1]
Dad, Husband, Charlottesville Realtor, real estate Blogger, occasional speaker - Inman Connects, NAR Conferences - based in Charlottesville, Virginia. A native Virginian, I graduated from VMI in 1998, am a third generation Realtor (since 2001) and have been "publishing" as a real estate blogger since January 2005. I've chosen to get involved in Realtor Associations on the local, state & national levels, having served on the NAR's RPR & MLS groups. Find me in Charlottesville, Crozet and Twitter.
BawldGuy
December 6, 2009 at 10:15 am
Patience, Jim. The rise of America’s majority, which has, at least in my lifetime, been to the right of center, is on the horizon. It’s a tsunami, a hundred year flood, or whatever else you’d prefer to call it. IMHO the 2010 elections will make Clinton’s ‘off year’ election debacle in 1994 look like a prelude to the real thing. Furthermore, by 2012, me thinks the current administration, (if they’re still in office) will embrace the hope their election loss won’t be too much worse than Carter’s in 1980.
My hope? That once and for all, conservative’s, after having grown a pair, remember what it’s like to walk the walk instead of being the bitches of the left.
Matt Stigliano
December 6, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Jim – First, thanks for the mention via the link. I’m pretty darn proud of that post. As for the BCS (which I care nothing about, so perhaps I’m a little biased) I find it incredulous that any politician should be sticking their nose into this. It’s amazing – and not in the usual good way. They’ve been talking it for quite some time and now they’re actually doing something about it. I guess I have to give them credit for taking some action instead of just yapping back and forth about it. Of interest, 3 out of the 5 co-sponsors hail from Texas, so I can’t say I’m surprised. I stick out like a sore thumb down here with my disinterest in any kind of football – high school, college, or NFL. Nothing matches Texas’ fascination with football. Nothing.
They broadcast high school football on network TV down here. Yep. You read that right.
Lani Rosales
December 6, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Jim, thanks for providing the Rep links, I see three are in my own state (which is surprising). The Congressional note seems to imply that NCAA teams just somehow don’t know that they have an economic impact (despite a long legacy of compensating coaches according to their wins aka economic impact). NCAA isn’t stupid and the almighty dollar speaks louder than anything else, so I smell a government sniffing around and it’s pretty ratty if you ask me.
I want Congress to focus on resolving health care appropriately, higher involvement in fighting human and drug trafficking, implementing effective alternative energy programs for the biggest energy users (commercial, industrial) rather than regulate a suburban mom’s use, etc. Seriously, I LOVE FOOTBALL but I don’t give a crap about going to the Uncle Sam Bowl, do you?
PS: Jeff, holy cow. I’m breathless!
PSS: Jim, you know that’s my favorite moment in all of sports history, right? Playoffs?!?! lol
Saurabh Das
December 6, 2009 at 2:35 pm
So just to be clear, the only thing your blog post has to do with real estate is that the “wrong” people are in power so surely this will somehow be bad for real estate. Yeah, I’ll get right on the calls.
Ken Montville
December 6, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Well, let’s see. College football is not really about college. It’s about football. “Student athlete” is an oxymoron. It’s not about the game, per se, but about the revenue it can bring into the college, its sports program and the nice “stuff” that money can buy. Since they bring in revenue through TV ad deals plus merchandising and they have to cross State lines to play (and sell) that sounds pretty much like interstate commerce to me.
Of course, they should stay out of it. But after giving billions away to the financial industry and auto industry titans (some of whom are probably alums being hit up for contributions to the sports programs), the govmint needs some bucks to help pay for Iraq and Afghanistan among other things.
Geeze, I’d rather them go after those highly lucrative college sports teams than raise my personal taxes.
BawldGuy
December 6, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Some how honed the ability to say nothing, but with elegance, to an art form. I’m envious.
Jim Duncan
December 6, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Saurabh –
Thank you for the comment. A question – did you read my post?
MIssy Caulk
December 7, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Jim, this is the height of pride and is so wrong.
Gosh darn it can’t they keep their grubby paws out of anything.
Excuse me while I go puke.