Brewers were paid by Dept. of Defense for "God Bless America" performances on Sundays

[homer]

I always thought one song before the game was enough. It was like after 9/11 everyone decided that singing more would help defeat the evils of the world.

[645]

I'm guessing that Bob from guest relations isn't getting any of that for singing it almost every week.

[hawing]

I'm guessing that Bob from guest relations isn't getting any of that for singing it almost every week.

I've been guessing all along that having Bob sing GBA saves the Brewers from having to either pay a non-employee live performer or playing the same recording every week. Wouldn't they have had to pay royalties for that Martina McBride video?

[superfly]

Can we sing God Bless America without being compensated for it? Pretty disgusting in my opinion...regardless if its $1 or $10 million.

 

 

 

80,000 of 18,000,000,000,000 is such a microscopic dent in the national debt...there are far more costly DoD expenditures that make up our debt you could be upset over lol

 

 

It's only $80,000, but there are most likely THOUSANDS of small things like this that we don't even know about where money is being pissed down drains. It all adds up quickly when you put it together.

[gregmag]

Lots of very thoughtful and interesting comments here. I would characterize almost all of them as "political" in some important sense. While I love this site, deeply respect the people who run it, and fully understand the desire to maintain civility, I've always thought the ban on "political" statements was completely incoherent. No one has ever come close to explaining it in a way that makes it workable.

 

When the U.S. Military pays sports teams on the sly to mount particular patriotic displays for purposes of military recruitment, that's a political issue on a bunch of levels. Based on my understanding of this site's rules, the most I can permissibly say about the issue is "oh."

[JohnBriggs12]

Per the article, the Brewers received $80k. I guess I just don't see it as a big deal for anyone involved.

 

The money is taxpayer money and the U.S. government has an $18 trillion debt. It should not be spending it stealthily on patriotic displays. That's the big deal. Can't blame the Brewers for taking it, but the I certainly don't want my tax dollars wasted like that.

 

80,000 of 18,000,000,000,000 is such a microscopic dent in the national debt...there are far more costly DoD expenditures that make up our debt you could be upset over lol

 

That's how the government thinks and that's why our deficit is so high. "Oh it's only a little". The fact that is it's a waste of taxpayer money, no matter how small. It's done over a lot of agencies and adds up Proxmire made a career in the Senate pointing out this type of waste.

[1992casey]

Based on my understanding of this site's rules, the most I can permissibly say about the issue is "oh."

 

The rule goes back to discussion of candidates and elections. That wasn't pretty.

 

Some topics qualify as news more than politics. I see this topic falling into that category. If we started getting into the authors of the report and debating their political histories, then we'd likely have a problem. Discussing it in the context of teams and fans would seem to be fine under our rules, though.

 

A lot of stuff is borderline. In cases like that, moderators will watch the discussion and act if things get out of hand. There were some things said in the David Denson topic that made us squeamish, but we let it slide because members didn't overreact to those posts.

 

I recall a topic asking where mass transit stops would be best located. The lead didn't get into political issues at all. The thread was fine until people brought up stuff like taxpayer money, etc. that was far outside the scope of what was presented in the lead.

 

A few topics are doomed from the start. We'll close those right away.

 

I think the bottom line is that nobody has "gotten into trouble" here for saying something that might touch on politics. The trouble starts when moderators give direction and people don't follow it.

[FVBrewerFan]

I don't see how this is any different from the DOD spending money on TV commercials or sponsoring a team in NASCAR. This is just part of recruiting. Regardless of how we feel about that in general, I'm just saying it's the same thing.

 

With that said, yes it did surprise me. I just assumed the Brewers and every other team were doing this just to be patriotic, not getting paid to be so.

[MadScientist]

The military shout-outs are an effective use of advertising money. It says to potential recruits "Hey, if you are in the service, people will respect what you do and honor you at various events." Great advertising, but only if nobody knows they are doing it. Once the curtain is pulled back, it becomes worse than useless.

 

Sponsoring GBA doesn't seem effective as a recruiting tool, and has legal issues.

 

I'm guessing we will still see some 'honest' military tributes, particularly on Memorial Day, Flag Day and the 4th.

[monty57]

Another issue is that according to the report, the Department of Defense is having trouble accounting for exactly what contracts exist and exactly what amount of money is being spent.

 

Well, that proves it's being run by the government :-)

[gregmag]

1992casey, that's helpful. Thanks.