About 15 years ago, Kay Hagan's husband had a "soak the taxpayers" scheme to build a major-league baseball stadium in Kernersville (a small town between Greensboro and Winston-Salem) to be funded with an additional restaurant sales tax, to try to lure the Minnesota Twins to move to Kernersville.
Chip Hagan would've made a bundle on the construction.
Thankfully it didn't go through, but it was a near thing.