Jim Duncan’s musings

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.

Really?

1 - Unemployment
2 - Wars
3 - Dollar's Decline
4 - General Malaise due to the Recession
5 - College Football doesn't have a playoff?

Dear House: please stop wasting our money.

This is the bill, and this is the "findings" section, whereby they justify the government's involvement ...bolding of #2 is mine.

Congress finds that--

(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.

 

Based on numbers two and three - how do they plan to tax these games more than they do now?