The Brewers are up 2-0 on the Dodgers in the NLCS, with Game 3 on deck in Los Angeles. It’s a great time to be a Brewers fan—and, apparently, an even better time for Instagram influencers to shoehorn a David Crowley campaign ad into the team’s actual achievements.
Take @hellobrownfamily, a verified account usually devoted to fashion and family, suddenly pivoting to politics with a reel of a woman in a Brewers sweatshirt at American Family Field. The message? ‘When you’re cheering on the Brewers this postseason, just remember you can thank David Crowley for helping keep them in Milwaukee through 2050.’ As luck, or perhaps coordination, would have it, a slew of influencers received the same memo.
Tiffany’s first-budget plan is a 10 percent income tax cut for families making $150,000 or less. He’s called the bigger income tax goal aspirational and pledged not to raise taxes. Unlike Crowley, who’s ushered in an increased sales tax and higher property taxes almost every year he’s held office.
Another reel, courtesy of @motherhoodforgood and friends, features fans waving towels and a caption crediting Crowley for ‘helping negotiate a deal to keep the Crew at home.’ Now, apparently, it’s the team’s job to ‘bring it home.’ The politicians have already done their part—spending your money.
Oddly enough, the same message popped up that night from accounts that have never shown an interest in stadium finance, just in time for the election countdown.
The deal in question is 2023 Wisconsin Act 40, signed by Gov. Tony Evers in December 2023 along with Act 41. It commits $500.8 million in public money to American Family Field over the life of the lease. The state covers $365.8 million. Milwaukee County pays $67.5 million, at $2.5 million a year. The City of Milwaukee pays another $67.5 million. The Brewers’ lease runs through at least Dec. 31, 2050.
When the bill cleared the Legislature in November 2023, Crowley said it came “through negotiations with our partners at the State of Wisconsin.” He said he was “proud to negotiate additional revenue flexibility” for the county, an estimated $239 million, and promised the deal would keep the Brewers “without any additional impact on local taxpayers.”
Five months earlier, in June 2023, Crowley signed a County Board resolution opposing the use of county tax levy for long-term renovations at the ballpark. A month after that, the County Board passed the 0.4 percent sales tax increase Crowley had sought, enabled by the state’s Act 12 shared revenue deal. The county sales tax rose from 0.5 percent to 0.9 percent on Jan. 1, 2024. Crowley thanked the board. The Brewers bill then loosened rules on how the county could spend the new sales tax money. That is the flexibility he described.
We’re told the sales tax hike is earmarked for the county’s pension mess, not the ballpark. But let’s not kid ourselves: Milwaukee County’s $67.5 million doesn’t materialize without consumers spending their money in Milwaukee. ‘No additional impact on local taxpayers’ is a neat slogan—unless you happen to shop in Milwaukee County and notice the higher rate at the register.
Mark Attanasio, the Brewers’ principal owner, is worth $1.9 billion, according to Forbes. Yet Instagram influencers want you to credit Crowley for the Brewers’ success because he helped funnel your money directed to a ballpark owned by a billionaire.
The same political circle that is highlighting Crowley’s role treated a comment from Tom Tiffany on reducing and even trying to eliminate the state’s income tax as damaging. At a Sept. 23 campaign event, a voter asked Tiffany about eliminating the state income tax. On audio later obtained by reporters, Tiffany said: “I will not be able to do it in the first budget, but, after that, we sure hope to be able to get it done.”
Tiffany’s first-budget plan is a 10 percent income tax cut for families making $150,000 or less. He’s called the bigger goal aspirational and pledged not to raise taxes. Unlike Crowley, who’s ushered in an increased sales tax and higher property taxes almost every year he’s held office.
Instagram influencers are celebrating public money for a billionaire-owned ballpark and crediting only the Democrat candidate for governor with the deal. A Republican saying he hopes to let families keep more of their own money is framed as the problem.
Crowley can take his bow for keeping the Brewers in Milwaukee. But let’s not forget: the bill that made it happen, complete with millions in taxpayer subsidies, is his legacy, too. When the Brewers win, it’s the players who earned it. Before you thank a politician, check your wallet and see who’s really footing the bill.
