Casinos – The Final Nail In Our Economic Coffin BONUS! Howie Carr NAILS the reason our "elected officials" are now pushing for 3 casinos . . . THEY'LL GET NO-SHOW JOBS!
By Len Mead
Friday, September 9, 2011
When the three top Democrats on Beacon Hill all agree on a scheme like casino gambling, you can be sure there’s big economic trouble ahead. With per-capita total taxes the 10th highest in the country, these socialists actually believe our state doesn’t have enough “revenue” – translation – your tax money.
Rather than controlling spending by reducing the bloated payroll of some 100,000 state workers and cutting taxes so businesses could start growing 
and stop fleeing the state, the Democrat kleptokrats have apparently convinced themselves that three casinos are an economic benefit. Dear Reader, in my view, casinos will help our sinking ship about as much as drilling more holes in the bottom.
Yes, there ARE 1-time construction jobs building the casino structures and low-end dealer/waitress/maintenance jobs at the casino sites. But in the long term when casinos spring up in developed areas, their profits steadily drain away essential capital. Putting a new casino at the end of the strip in Vegas doesn’t degrade and destroy anything. But putting one in a populated area with people, schools and businesses just sucks out the dollars and the morals.
Businesses trying to compete where new casinos spring up find the work ethic degrades – absenteeism climbs, divorce climbs, suicides climb and bankruptcies climb. Year-end bonuses that otherwise would be deposited in a child’s college fund get lost at the craps table – unknown to the spouse – until additional attempts to win back the money result in further loses – the marriage collapses and the family is destroyed.
The idea that casinos will produce NEW revenues here is bass-ackwards. That’s because our state lottery is the most productive in the country, resulting in current gambling sales per capita of $653 - the third highest in the country – over three times the national average of $175 according to Dartmouth Economists Baxandall and Sacerdotal in 2005. Casinos will create a shell game of casino profits which are sucked out of our state from state lottery funds.
Bad as that sounds, the Dartmouth study also shows that the poorest people with incomes below $10,000 per year gamble the highest percent of their money per year -- $600. High school drop-outs gamble four times what college graduates do and blacks gamble five times whites.
United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts analyzed Foxwoods Casino’s profits in CT and projected that for our state to collect a lousy $200 million in revenue (Vs. a $30 billion state budget), 40,000 people would have to lose $234 every day, 365 days a year!
Let me suggest that the purpose of local and state government is NOT to employee people and provide them with high salaries, health-care for life, pensions, early retirement and other perks. But casinos will bring hoards of new union hacks onto the state payroll driving their state cars to “monitor and control” the casinos all the while getting comped with free drinks, free hookers and free meals, etc. And just what do you think these new casino payroll patriots will be doing around election times --- campaigning for lower taxes and conservative candidates?
Attorney General Martha Coakley testified in 2009, “A brand new government bureaucracy will be necessary to audit, regulate, inspect and oversee casinos - to the tune of $20 million, or higher. Hundreds of government employees will be necessary to ensure compliance with regulations regarding money laundering, wiretapping and loan sharking.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Compulsive gamblers, upon whom casinos rely for 25 to 50 percent of their revenues, tend to borrow money and not pay it back, commit credit card and insurance fraud, kite checks and go bankrupt.”
Think casinos will help lower taxes? Just look at Connecticut, where Foxwoods - the largest, most profitable casino in the USA operates. The state has the HIGHEST PER CAPITA of taxes paid in the country!
Nobody described shenanigans on Democrat Beacon Hill better than one of my heroes, Howie Carr, when he summarized, “1) Nothing’s on the level, 2) Everything’s a deal, and 3) No deal is too small.” Kinda’ frightening ain’t it?
Yes, the Beacon Hill Democrats have started to push the casino train out of the station. But friends, if we don’t derail it at this late date, we’re gonna get even more economic misery, more hacks and more loss of precious capital needed to get the private sector of our state growing again.
Lastly, casinos will degrade our state reputation for culture and education. Once implemented, the perversion of casino gambling will be here forever.
Len Mead can be reached anytime at mead1720@gmail.com
Senators win big in gamble for slots jobs
By Howie Carr | Sunday, October 2, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Big debate in the state Senate last week — how long should the solons have to wait after leaving the august body before taking a job at one of the state’s new casinos?
The reformers wanted a five-year “cooling-off period,” while the hacks couldn’t bear to wait more than one year before grabbing their no-show, six-figure jobs.
Guess who prevailed in the end? It’s too bad, because a compromise could have been easily worked out. They could have had the cooling-off period run concurrently with the ex-solon’s probation after he (or she) finishes the inevitable prison sentence.
Still, it was quite a debate. The trouble was started by an anti-casino moonbat from Acton named Jamie Eldridge. He had the temerity to suggest that if they were going to approve three casinos and one slots parlor, it should be a boon for the entire state, “not an economic bill for legislators.”
How dare he!
First Sen. Stephen Brewer said, “We don’t get rich doing this.”
That’s right. Billy Bulger’s pension is only $200,000 a year.
What you have to understand is that many senators have never had a real job. The career trajectory often goes something like this: aide to a solon, then state rep, then state senator and, finally, prison inmate.
Sen. Stanley Rosenberg of Amherst talked about the bum rap lawmakers get when they submit to the usual nationwide searches for state jobs.
“We had a colleague who twice became a finalist for a college presidency. He was turned down because he was a former legislator and the perception about what it meant to be a legislator.”
I think he’s referring to a genius named David Magnani. He had a Ph.D., but once had to run for re-election on stickers because he forgot to file his nomination papers.
Here is a sentence from Dr. Magnani’s dissertation: “Since the earth is becoming increasingly covered by humans and centric pressure is now building due to increased numbers and the increased psychic space of each individual, competition no longer serves, particularly in relation to evolutionary future of human synergy.”
Obviously, a blinding intellect, passed over merely because he was a state senator.
Sen. Gale Canderas next stood up to say that by enacting a five-year waiting period, “We’re creating an assumption that people in this body cannot operate with integrity.”
Paging Sens. Wilkerson, Marzilli and Galluccio, and that’s just the most recent generation of jailbirds.
Well, you can figure out how this story ends. The Democrats went behind closed doors, and when they came out, the five-year cooling-off period had turned into 12 months. And so, coming soon to a casino near you will be a whole new crew of six-figure layabouts — a vice president for governmental relations, ably assisted by an assistant vice president for governmental relations, an associate vice president, a deputy veep, an executive secretary and a senior administrative assistant.
Just yell, “Senator!” and they’ll all come running.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1370322