July 27, 2026
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
To benefit from Pennsylvania tax dollars, learn to hit the curve ball or burst through the “A Gap” for a first down.
Better still, own a team.
I posted earlier about Lafayette College receiving $1 million of Pennsylvania taxpayers’ dollars for its baseball field. Now, take a look at the region’s dominant pro team.
In 2025, CNBC valued the Philadelphia Eagles at $8.5 billion. Still, when it came time to improve the training facility, Jeffrey Lurie’s Birds needed $4 million from the rest of us.
Here’s the note from Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program about the $4 million grant:
| The renovations will impact several integral parts of the facility: expand the players’ locker room and training room; construct a cafeteria addition to include a rooftop area for guests; expand and renovate the seating area in the existing cafeteria; renovate the kitchen area; expand and renovate existing staff locker rooms; expand and renovate the Coaches locker room; expand and develop the main lobby and the coaches’ entrance. |
So our tax dollars are going to a multi-billion-dollar operation and of course I’m glad that I helped pay for “a rooftop area for guests.” As an involuntary donor, will I be able to go there?
Hmmm. By the way, the facility used to be the NovaCare Complex. Now it’s the Jefferson Health Training Complex.
Disclosure: I’m a big Eagles fan (and I went to Lafayette) and my favorite NFL player is Birds’ quarterback Jalen Hurts.
Hurts makes about $3 million per game, so that $4 million would pay would pay for one game and another 20 minutes of the next. Or maybe it could pay for a backup guard for a year.
The team pays that kind of salaries and still needs my money? As noted, I’m a big fan, rarely miss a game and Lurie has turned the Eagles into a powerhouse.
Still, is this where state money should be going? Pennsylvania just wrapped up its usual budget drama with a $50 billion spending plan that needed creative accounting to be balanced.
Our local taxes are going up, our state budget is a combination of compromise and trickery, and the Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) is doling out money to special interests while almost nobody is watching.
That money is not unlimited and it is not free. We all pay for it.
A local senior center will close because of a lack of state funds, but Lafayette and the Eagles are getting tax money. Call it pork barrel politics, call it a slush fund, call it “redevelopment” but by any name our money is going to some wealthy organizations. Lafayette and the Eagles are both valued in the billions.
Ask your state officials to do better. To get a good look at where your money is going, see the list of grants from the RACP:
round 2025 submissions-awards.xlsx
Boondoggle on!
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 