Under the Tax Reform Act of 1986, Congress permitted tax-exempt municipal financing for stadiums and other sports facilities as
public purpose bonds, but only where they met the new definitions in the law crafted by Congress and the Reagan administration.
Under the 1986 Act, Congress changed the definition of traditional
public purpose bonds to define them as private activity bonds if more than ten percent of the use is by a non- governmental party (federal, nonprofit, or private), or if more than ten percent of the debt service is derived from or secured by private parties.
Fraser urged the committee to modify portions of the bill dealing with traditional
public purpose bonds, social security taxes on state and local elected and appointed officials, and pensions:
Those efforts are expected to include efforts to change the definition of
public purpose bonds, modify the arbitrage and rebate mandates on local governments, restore incentives for banks to purchase municipal debt, and index state volume caps.
The rules, which were temporary, were issued to implement the extraordinary changes mandated on municipal finance under the 1986 tax reform act and applied to traditional
public purpose bonds issued by cities after September 1, 1986.
For the nation's municipal leaders, the veto overturned the greatest progress in six years in reversing the course of restrictions on the authority and ability of cities and towns to issue traditional
public purpose bonds.