Chuck's giving my FFA chapter a tour of the capital tomorrow I'll through a comment in
Grassley could help ISU
- Thread starter Sportstalkmatt
- Start date
Interesting. Big time college FB & BB does seem to be for-profit divisions of putatively non-profit schools. Especially when the determining factor of conference membership is revenue.
Posted before but apt here.
The only way political pressure will have any sway, is if the senior minority member of the Senate Finance committee gives Delaney a call and says,:
"Your actions in expansion will be very revealing as to whether or not Big 10 athletic departments can maintain their non-profit status.
If proximity, academic integrity and research prowess are truly your motives, Iowa State University will be invited. If it is a pure profit play, Iowa State will not be invited.
Once your motives are revealed, we will look at how to handle the collection of taxes and loss of deduct-ability for Big 10 athletic department contributions."
The only way political pressure will have any sway, is if the senior minority member of the Senate Finance committee gives Delaney a call and says,:
"Your actions in expansion will be very revealing as to whether or not Big 10 athletic departments can maintain their non-profit status.
If proximity, academic integrity and research prowess are truly your motives, Iowa State University will be invited. If it is a pure profit play, Iowa State will not be invited.
Once your motives are revealed, we will look at how to handle the collection of taxes and loss of deduct-ability for Big 10 athletic department contributions."
If a politician ever made such a phonecall, they should be immediately named Emporer.
Everyone thinks about the bball and football but forget about women's lacrosse, water polo, etc.
If the athletic dept's have to start paying taxes, whose pockets do you think that money's coming out of?
Who cares? Let's find out how serious these "have" schools are about the educational experience and well-being of the student-athlete. If you're truly in this for the right reasons, raise the money for women's lacrosse and water polo.
That being said, it does raise a point - what is a university's mission? To raise as much money as it possibly can, thereby giving it a greater ability to erect bigger and greater monuments to its greatness (i.e., Memorial Stadium and its vast amount of improvements over the years), or is its mission to educate the masses as well as research better technologies that will improve society? If university presidents are actually in charge of how conferences will realign, and they will do it in such a way that is revenue-driven instead of education-driven, and will do so at the expense and perhaps to the detriment of other quality universities because "they don't bring in enough television revenue dollars", perhaps the non-profit status of universities should be revoked, because universities are no longer acting as non-profit entities. Hell, if a church can have its non-profit status revoked for publicly supporting a political candidate, perhaps a college should have it's non-profit status revoked for trying to generate profits.
Yeah Right!!! I've got beachfront property in Iowa for sale too. It's an election year!! Nothing will be done before November and you will not hear of this again after November.. Q How do you know when a politician is lying?? A His lips are moving..
Senator Grassley has always been against entities with the federal designation of a "non-profit organiziations" who are clearly "for-profit". As ranking member of the Finance Committee, he hasa legitimate concern about this type of distinction for an entity with such a great capacity to generate revenue. The shady politicians give a bad reputation to someone like Grassley, but Grassley is not one to play the political game. He's a hardliner, and he has always been concerned about the careful allocation of federal money. Basically, having worked for Senator Grassley for a short time in DC and having a good feel for his personnel and how they work, I believe he will do everything he can within his power if this is an issue he has decided to take on.
Steve Deace is fond of the saying "there's the real reason, and there's the right reason." For example while ISU is better academically than say a Nebraska or Mizzou, they aren't so much so that you could make the argument that it is only based on money (even if it primarily is). Now if Nebraska had the academic reputation of a KSU or TTU, that would be a much easier argument.
Election year politics, pure and simple. Seriously doubt Culver or Grassley can have any affect on what will go down on the conference realignment, but it looks good if they make some noise about it. Then Culver can go back to work trying to help labor and Grassley back in the lap of his corporate masters.
This is a serious question...if Grassley is going to "help" ISU, what action is within his power that could force an athletic conference (most probably the Big Ten) to add ISU? Doesn't he really need 50 other senators to back him so that any meaningful arm-twisting legislation could be passed?
I am not saying he will be able to help, just saying that if Senator Grassley decides he wants to pursue something he has the clout and the personnel to do it. As ranking member of the Finance Committee, he staffs the Republican side of the Finance Committee Staff. Most important, his office is completley in charge of staffing the Republican personnel on the Tax and Trade branch of the Finance Committee, and as such he can easily look into the tax repercussions of the "non-profit" designation if he so choses. Aside from his personal office, there are probalby 30-40 very, very bright attorneys, legalees and staffers under his guidance...
Again, not saying he can help us...but definitely the right guy to have on our side.
Essentially, yes. Most important in Grassley's position is he can call for an investigation and hearings into the generation of revenue for these "non-profits". From there, all he can do is hope the findings are egregious enough to compel action. A long shot, but it can't hurt.
Doesn't a Texas senator need 50 other senators to back him so that any meaningful arm-twisting legislation that would only benefit the state of Texas could be passed? Or a New York senator? Or a California senator? How does that get done? By making deals with one another. The senate was specifically put in place in order to PREVENT large states like New York, California, and Texas from bullying smaller states like Iowa - it gives all states an equal voice. And considering Grassley has been there a very long time, not only does his presence demand the respect from the rest of the senate, but he probably has collected hundreds of IOUs that perhaps has come time to cash in...
Any Senator can call for investigations and hearing by himself? I would think that he'd need at least a majority in a committee to get that done but I could be wrong.
Senator Grassley is the ranking member and former chair of the committee. I'm not sure of the procedural hoops he'd have to jump through, but it would get done. Clout goes a long way in the Senate.
