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Trump Slams Pro Football League for Tax Break It No Longer Gets

by Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON --

   U.S. President Donald Trump attacked the country's most popular sports
   league, the National Football League, on Tuesday for "getting massive
   tax breaks," even though the league gave up its federal tax-exempt
   status two years ago.

   Trump has been waging a verbal war against more than 200 NFL players,
   most of them African-American, who at recent games have knelt during
   the playing of the national anthem in protest against racism in the
   U.S. and what they see as law enforcement agencies' disparate treatment
   of minorities compared to that of whites.

   In a Twitter comment, Trump said, "Why is the NFL getting massive tax
   breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and
   Country? Change tax law!"

   The NFL for years controversially held a federal tax-exempt status,
   which saved the league hundreds of millions of dollars, but voluntarily
   relinquished that status in 2015.

   Many teams in the league, however, are receiving substantial state and
   local government tax breaks for keeping their teams in the cities where
   they play their games, rather than move elsewhere, and to build mammoth
   stadiums at taxpayer expense. But those are local agreements and not
   decisions Trump and the federal government could end.
   Trump's NFL remark came two days after Vice President Mike Pence walked
   out of an NFL game in his home state of Indiana after about a dozen San
   Francisco 49er players took a knee while the "Star Spangled Banner" was
   played before their game with the Indianapolis Colts.

   Pence said he left the game saying Trump "and I will not dignify any
   event that disrespects our soldiers, our flag, or our national anthem."

   Later, Trump tweeted that he had asked Pence "to leave stadium if any
   players kneeled, disrespecting our country. I am proud of him and
   Second Lady" Karen Pence.

   The NFL has said the protesting players are entitled to exercise their
   constitutional right of freedom of speech. But one prominent team
   owner, Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, has now announced that any of
   his players who kneel during the national anthem will be benched and
   kept out of the team's games.