The National Football League season will open tonight in New Jersey’s Metlife stadium, the only NFL stadium that was built without some sort of public support. All of the other NFL venues either received direct subsidies for their construction or benefit from other publicly funded improvements.

And NFL franchises are certainly not the only ones benefiting from taxpayer largesse. According to an analysis by Bloomberg News, taxpayers have spent $4 billion on subsidies for sports structures since 1986 via tax exemptions that come along with the bonds used to finance stadium or arena construction:

Tax exemptions on interest paid by muni bonds that were issued for sports structures cost the U.S. Treasury $146 million a year, based on data compiled by Bloomberg on 2,700 securities. Over the life of the $17 billion of exempt debt issued to build stadiums since 1986, the last of which matures in 2047, taxpayer subsidies to bondholders will total $4 billion, the data show.

Those estimates are based on what the Treasury could have collected on interest from the same amount of taxable bonds sold at the same time to investors in the 25 percent income-tax bracket, the rate many government agencies assume. In fact, more than half the owners of tax-exempt bonds pay top rates of at least 30 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. So they save even more on their income taxes, a system that U.S. lawmakers of both parties and President Barack Obama have described as inefficient and unfair.

These bonds raise money to pay for construction and improvements, enabling wealthy franchise owners to avoid paying for their own stadiums or fancy new upgrades. Individuals who invest in the bonds then receive tax exemptions, lowering government revenue; so the subsidy for stadium construction “comes out of the pockets of every American taxpayer.” Using bonds to finance stadium construction is nothing more than a transfer of taxpayer money to wealthy franchise owners whose teams can be worth billions of dollars.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the public money thrown at sports franchises. For instance, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones pays no property taxes on Cowboys Stadium, saving his franchise $17 million per year.

Franchises often use the threat of moving to a new city to extort more expensive facilities and ever bigger heaps of tax exemptions from fans and politicians loathe to see the local team disappear. But states and cities should really question whether new stadiums for already wealthy individuals are the best way to spend often scarce taxpayer dollars.

Our guest bloggers are Julia Gordon, Director of Housing Finance and Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and John Griffith, a policy analyst at CAPAF.

After months of avoiding the issue on the campaign trail, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney last night finally released an overview of his housing plan.

But instead of listing the specific ways a Romney White House would support a housing recovery — the early stages of which already appears to be underway — roughly half of the 700-word “plan” is dedicated to attacking President Obama’s record. Where Romney does mention policy, he’s characteristically light on details and heavy on platitudes. The Romney plan has four components:

• Responsibly sell the 200,000 vacant foreclosed homes owned by the government;

• Facilitate foreclosure alternatives for those who cannot afford to pay their mortgage;

• Replace complex rules with smart regulation to hold banks accountable, restore a functioning marketplace and restart lending to creditworthy borrowers;

• Protect taxpayers from additional risk in the future by reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac”

If none of these ideas sound new, it’s because they aren’t. Let’s take each in turn.

First, foreclosed homes. The Obama administration this year worked with Fannie Mae and its federal regulator to conduct an unprecedented bulk sale of government-owned homes. The sale, which was extremely successful in attracting private capital, is now moving thousands of homes off the government books to be converted to rentals. Romney offers no ways to improve or expand this initiative.

Second, foreclosure prevention. The Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program has helped millions of families avoid foreclosure by refinancing to today’s historically low rates, modifying their loan, or negotiating a short sale or deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure; it has established an industry standard for mitigating losses and keeping families in their homes. Meanwhile, Romney has yet to offer any specific alternatives for families facing foreclosure, other than letting the foreclosure process “run its course and hit the bottom.” (Imagine if Obama’s jobs plan was “facilitate alternatives to unemployment for those who cannot find a job.”)

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According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 14.9 percent of American households were “food insecure” last year, meaning they had trouble at some point during the year providing enough food for all of the household’s members. 6.8 million households, meanwhile, had very low food security:

– In 2011, 85.1 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the year. The remaining 14.9 percent (17.9 million households) were food insecure. Food-insecure households (those with low and very low food security) had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. The change from the 2010 estimate (14.5 percent) was not statistically significant, meaning that the difference may be due to sampling variation.

– In 2011, 5.7 percent of U.S. households (6.8 million households and one-third of all food-insecure households) had very low food security. In these households, the food intake of some household members was reduced and normal eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year due to limited resources. The prevalence of very low food security returned to the level observed in 2008 and 2009, a statistically significant increase from the 5.4-percent level of 2010.

These numbers make clear that, though the Great Recession is officially over, its effects are still being felt by households across the country. Reflecting the continued tough economic times, food stamp usage hit a record high in June.

Republicans — who approved a budget that would have thrown millions of people off of food stamps — have used the numbers to claim that food stamps are on an “unsustainable” trajectory. “Washington needs to have a grown-up conversation about the unchecked pace of food stamp enrollment,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) in a statement yesterday.

However, food stamp spending only increased (to a miniscule 0.52 percent of the economy) as a result of the recession, and is on pace to return to its normal level as the economy strengthens:

According to Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Donna Cooper, the cuts to food stamps that Republicans favor would “force America’s poorest families to forgo as many as 8.2 billion meals a year.” In the meantime, the GOP is using hungry families as a disingenuous example of government run amok.

A recent report from the St. Louis Federal Reserve highlights that automotive sales continue to be one of the most encouraging aspects of an otherwise sluggish economic recovery. The report notes that “most analysts regard increases in automobile and light truck sales as an important component of an economic recovery.” And ever since the recession and the government rescue of the automakers, the industry has been on a steady upward climb:

During the first six months of 2012, the annual sales rate for automobiles and light trucks was 14.8 percent higher than during the comparable year-earlier period… Most recently, however, slower vehicle sales have mirrored the generally slowing pace of U.S. economic activity, with the July sales rate less than June’s… Yet, July sales of 1.15 million vehicles were 8.9 percent better than the same month in 2011.

August was even better, with sales topping 1.2 million, making it the best August for auto sales since before the recession. And the rebound would not have been possible without the bridge loans provided by the government in 2009.

Numerous industry insiders agree that Mitt Romney’s alternative proposal for private markets to provide necessary capital to complete the bankruptcy process is wildly implausible. The economy was still reeling from the recession, and sources of private capital were in no position to provide that kind of aid. Without government intervention, there would’ve likely been a massive liquidation of the industry, wiping out as many as 1.3 million jobs.

Obama administration policies have helped in other ways as well: New fuel efficiency standards and incentives in the 2009 stimulus are driving American-made cars to be become more competitive in an international market adapting to higher fuel prices.

The world’s richest woman has equated Australia’s minimum wage to “class warfare,” following her controversial article last week where she called poor workers coddled, lazy drunks. Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, who inherited her $30 billion fortune and mining empire, pointed to workers who make less than $2 as a model for economic competitiveness in mining:

We must be realistic, not just promote class warfare. Indeed, if we competed at the Olympic games as sluggishly as we compete economically, there would be an outcry.

The evidence is unarguable that Australia is indeed becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export- orientated business. Africans want to work. Its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country’s future.

Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard responded harshly to Rinehart. “It’s not the Australian way to toss people $2, to toss them a gold coin, and then ask them to work for a day,” Gillard said. “We support proper Australian wages and decent working conditions.”

Rinehart’s flawed logic draws on a popular myth among U.S. conservatives, that increasing the minimum wage would impact job and economic growth. But a significant body of research shows that higher minimum wages have no effect on employment levels.

America’s young adults could bolster a housing recovery if they weren’t sitting under a growing mountain of student debt, according to a new report from Young Invincibles that studied the effects of student debt on a young borrower’s ability to qualify for and afford a mortgage.

The report, “Denied: The Impact of Student Debt on the Ability to Buy A House,” explained that student debt often raises the average young borrower’s debt-to-income ratios beyond the threshold required to qualify for a Federal Housing Administration mortgage or other private mortgages. So as student debt has ballooned, it has become harder for those with student loans to qualify for a mortgage:

– The average single student debtor is likely ineligible for the typical home mortgage due to their debt-to-income ratio.

– Including a typical mortgage and other consumer debt, the average single student debtor has a debt-to-income ratio of .49, meaning they would pay about half of their monthly income toward student loans and mortgage payments, and would not qualify for an FHA loan or many private mortgages.

– A similar typical single debtor in 2002 would have a debt-to-income ratio of .43 — a 14 percent increase over the last decade.

– For couples looking to buy a house, it is more difficult to qualify for a home mortgage when even one of the buyers has student debt, and even harder if both buyers have student debt.

Private lenders often look beyond the debt-to-income ratio when approving or denying a mortgage, but as the report notes, young college graduates with student debt often lack the sizable down payment or high credit score needed to obtain a mortgage if they already hold too much debt.

The rate of young homeowners was already in decline before the housing crash: from 1980 to 2000, the share of 20-somethings owning homes dropped from 43 percent to 38 percent. And it has fallen off a cliff since then, shrinking by half over the last decade. The entire 30-year drop corresponds with rapidly rising rates of student debt, as tuition prices have soared and students have taken out larger loans to keep up. The total amount of student debt held by Americans will pass $1 trillion sometime in 2012, according to the Federal Reserve.

America’s housing market is limping toward a recovery four years after the market collapsed. Prices rose in all 20 major markets in a popular survey last month. But without young borrowers there to enter and strengthen the market, that recovery is more tenuous than it otherwise could be.

FactCheck.org, an independent fact-checking organization, highlighted several claims from the Democratic National Convention’s first night of speeches that it called “dubious or misleading.” But a closer examination of at least one of those claims leads to the conclusion that FactCheck.org needs to check its own facts instead of relying on baseless promises from political candidates.

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro cited a well-known study from the Tax Policy Center when he stated that Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s tax plan would “raise taxes on the middle class.” FactCheck.org, however, found that claim to be misleading because Romney “has promised he won’t” raise middle-class taxes:

The keynote speaker and others claimed the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, would raise taxes on the “middle class.” He has promised he won’t. Democrats base their claim on a study that doesn’t necessarily lead to that conclusion.

FactCheck.org is right that Romney’s plan “doesn’t necessarily” raise taxes on the middle class, but it is absurd to base that conclusion on the candidate’s promises. Romney has, indeed, promised not to raise taxes on the middle class. But he has also promised that his tax plan will maintain current revenue levels.

Those promises, by any measure, are totally incompatible, something the Tax Policy Center study made abundantly clear when it found that Romney couldn’t possibly raise enough revenue to maintain current revenue levels by closing tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy. Thus, Romney’s plan will either add to the deficit or raise middle-class taxes, unless he forgoes his 20 percent rate reduction altogether.

Add in TPC’s updated study of Romney’s corporate tax plan, which the campaign clarified won’t use revenue gained from closing loopholes to offset revenue losses from his income tax cut, and it becomes even more likely that the middle class will see its taxes increase under Romney.

If Romney keeps his promise to maintain current tax levels for the middle class, he’ll have to break his promise to maintain current revenue levels. If Romney keeps his promise to maintain current revenue levels, he’ll have to substantially raise taxes on the middle class. Either way, if Romney becomes president and his tax plan becomes law, one of the promises will have to be broken, an obvious fact that FactCheck.org decided not to include in its analysis of Castro’s speech.