(See our T-shirt ad on the home page. It is just this sort of tyrannical edicts that provoked the idea.)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, oblivious to the stack of House-passed bills gathering dust on his desk, has focused the bulk of his attention this year on the Washington Redskins football team, and their supposedly “racist” name and mascot.
It is widely believed that he pressured the US Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the trademark protections owned by the team, earlier this year, as punishment for their refusal to bow to his will and change their name.
Now he is backing a bill in the Senate that would punish the NFL if they don’t also put pressure on the team to change their name.
The Hill is reporting that Harry Reid has thrown his full support behind a bill that would strip the NFL of their nonprofit tax-exempt status, unless they force the Redskins to comply with liberal wishes.
“I wish Roger Goodell and the NFL’s leadership team would take a stand,” Reid said in a statement. “As the past few weeks have illustrated, the problems within the NFL are far and wide. Today we are taking action and I gladly stand with Senator Cantwell in calling for the end of NFL’s not-for-profit status.”
There have been other pieces of legislation, from both sides of the aisle, directed at removing the tax-exempt status of the NFL, but this bill is narrowly tailored to deal specifically with the Redskins team name.
Normally, as fiscal conservatives, we would generally be in support of a bill that would strip the NFL of their nonprofit, tax-exempt status, as they are a distinctly profitable, multi-billion dollar industry, and are quite likely taking full advantage of political favors by abusing a loophole to claim and keep their nonprofit status.
However, this bill has nothing to do with being fiscally conservative. It is a vindictive piece of legislation based on politically correct, progressive liberal BS, that seeks to punish an entire league for the perceived hurt feelings of a special protected class, and for the refusal to cave in to political pressure by one team owner.