It’s part of American culture but so are many other things we don’t directly give money. This seems a lot more like corruption, especially when you look at the track record of misleading economic promises.

I haven’t lived in San Diego since the 2000s but I’m still bitter about the way the Chargers got a contract which guaranteed greater attendance than they had for the Super Bowl, where they got more money for an empty seat than a sold ticket. No way that would have flown in a straight up vote, which is why they carefully avoided one.