f the irrationality of granting tax exemptions for interest on municipal bonds that financed projects primarily benefiting private interests. The 1986 Tax Reform Act denies federal subsidies for sports facilities if more than 10 percent of the debt service is covered by revenues from the stadium. If Congress intended that this would reduce sports subsidies, it was sadly mistaken. If anything, the 1986 law increased local subsidies by cutting rents below 10 percent of debt service. Last year Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), concerned about the prospect of a tax exemption for a debt of up to $1 billion for a new stadium in New York, introduced a bill to eliminate tax-exempt financing for professional sports facilities and thus eliminate federal subsidies of stadiums. The theory behind the bill is that raising a city's cost from a stadium giveaway would reduce the subsidy. Although cities might respond this way, they would still compete among each other for scarce franchises, so to some extent the likely effect of the bill is to pass higher interest charges on to cities, not teams. Antitrust and Regulation Congress has considered several proposals to regulate team movement and league expansion. The first came in the early 1970s, when the Washington Senators left for Texas. Unhappy baseball fans on Capitol Hill commissioned an inquiry into professional sports. The ensuing report recommended removing baseball's antitrust immunity, but no legislative action followed. Another round of ineffectual inquiry came in 1984-85, following the relocations of the Oakland Raiders and Baltimore Colts. Major league baseball's efforts in 1992 to thwart the San Francisco Giants' move to St. Petersburg again drew proposals to withdraw baseball's cherished antitrust exemption. As before, nothing came of the congressional interest. In 1995-96, inspired by the departure of the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, Representative Louis Stokes from Cleveland and S...
