Here's what happened: The Ricketts family recently bought the Chicago Cubs from The Tribune Co. (the travesty of Sam Zell's takeover of Tribune is a whole nother story). The family's daddy, Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade, started an organization called Taxpayers Against Earmarks to fight wasteful government spending and earmarks. He also has a political group called the Ending Spending Fund.
Joe Ricketts has actually said
“I think it’s a crime for our elected officials to borrow money today, to spend money today and push the repayment of that loan out into the future on people who are not even born yet.”Joe's son Tom is chairman of the Cubs. He wants Illinois taxpayers to assume the risk for hundreds of millions of dollars in construction costs for Wrigley Field, which his family owns along with the team.
Renovating Wrigley Field is a worthy goal, not least because it would create much-needed jobs. But in exchange for taxpayer support, the Ricketts family should agree to shut the F* up about wasteful government spending.
