The Texas Rangers are on the ballot in Arlington. The $500 million they want from city taxpayers is not.

The November ballot spells out the taxes to help fund a new ballpark with a retractable roof: $3 on stadium parking, 10 percent on tickets, 2 percent on hotels, 5 percent on car rentals and the big one -- one-half percent on sales throughout the city.

It doesn’t tally the total public contribution, even though that’s central to the debate. Opponents believe it’s a bad deal, largely because it’s half a billion dollars in taxpayer money. Stadium supporters say another issue towers over everything: What happens if the Rangers leave Arlington?

Both sides make a strong case, and as lawyers like to say, you can argue it round or argue it flat. Here are my best reasons to vote against a new Rangers stadium.

None of the $500 million goes to the big vision

While opponents fixate on the size of the public subsidy, the bigger problem is how the $500 million would be spent. All of it is earmarked for the stadium, not the spectacular plan for an additional $3 billion in new development around it. You gotta love the idea of creating a Sundance Square in Arlington, a vision unveiled just last month. Hotels, restaurants, apartments, entertainment centers and corporate headquarters could be densely packed between AT&T Stadium and a new ballpark, officials said. But as Mayor Jeff Williams told The Dallas Morning News editorial board, there's no "financial hook to make sure they do it." There should be, because in business, you often get what you incentivize.

There’s plenty of time to make a better deal

The Rangers’ lease at Globe Life Park runs until 2024, so voters could reject the ballot proposal and encourage city leaders to rework key points. Having eight years to get the deal right is a rare luxury. Arlington could draw up a comprehensive plan that considers surrounding development, links to its improving neighborhoods and a transit solution. Maybe Arlington could get local schools involved, as Frisco did with the Cowboys practice facility. Then Arlington could sprinkle around the incentives to improve the odds of getting more than just a stadium. This approach might also limit future tax breaks, which tend to never end. Arlington is capping its contribution to the stadium; why not cap its share of the entire project?

Globe Life Park is too young and fresh to be retired

At 22 years old, the current stadium is still in its prime and was built to last decades longer. At a time when there's more attention on the environment and sustainability, it seems wasteful and indulgent to replace a great ballpark for the primary purpose of adding air conditioning. If the owners insist, that's their prerogative. But they want residents to pay for much of it. That's called enabling. At $500 million, the subsidy also would be among the highest public contributions for a Major League Baseball stadium. It's twice as much, in inflation-adjusted dollars, as residents ponied up for Globe Life in 1991.

Transit is barely an afterthought

Arlington has often been denounced as the country's largest city without mass transit. That sometimes frustrates neighbors that invest heavily in rail and buses while Arlington sales tax goes to stadiums. Memo to Arlington: The region's traffic congestion is bad and getting worse. Yet the ballpark proposal doesn't contemplate a transit plan, even though most MLB parks have rail connections. The mayor said a panel of 30 citizens, appointed last month, will start studying transit options with the help of a transit consultant. Williams also touted Uber, Lyft and self-driving vehicles. They're "making our light rail obsolete," he said. Try selling that notion to millennials.

The return on investment is scary

Arlington leaders are convinced Dallas wants to lure away the team, so they made an offer the Rangers couldn’t resist. For politicians, it's not a tough call. No one wants to be known as the mayor who lost baseball. But taxpayers should consider the cost. In Dallas, the public tab for a new ballpark might be half as much as in Arlington. Dallas has rail and bus lines, and a downtown population that could support restaurants and shops when there’s not a game. That makes the economics stronger. To counter that, Arlington has to cough up more taxpayer money. According to a city study, the new Rangers stadium would generate $134 million for Arlington over the next 38 years. That’s the total sales tax, rent, hotel and car rental tax -- real money, not often-hyped ripple effects. How's that return on $500 million?