Remember people, there is no turning back if this referendum is not passed. Now you all know it’s not the end of the world if Martha doesn’t win. That’s because deep down you know she can’t be trusted and will probably screw you in the end.
The people running the referendum campaign can really use your help. Please go to this webpage and sign up to do what it is you do. BMGers are some of the best organizers and political canvassers in the country. Time to sweep in and teach the powers who be who the real boss is.
Remember, there is no turning back if this doesn’t pass.
Please share widely!
hlpeary says
Usually I agree with EBIII on issues, but I can’t get all worked up and over about the Q#3 attempt to repeal the state’s Gaming Law. I will vote NO on this question because I just can’t and don’t buy all the hyperbolic warnings about gaming causing crime waves, epidemic addictions to drugs, alcohol and gambling, bankruptcy spikes, divorce, domestic violence, demise of poor and elderly citizens and the end of civilization as we know it. I get that the anti-gaming folks need to exaggerate to get the public on their side, but they have gone way over the top with me. I look to communities in CT and ME who have casino/hotel resorts and see none of the earth shattering consequences the anti-gaming folks want me to envision here.
Governor Patrick created this law and the legislature passed it to create jobs in regions that were still struggling to make it out of the recession, to increase state tax revenue (without spending state tax revenue to do it) and to add to the tourist options the state already has to attract major convention business. That is the intent of this law.
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. That’s what the Massachusetts Enhanced Gaming law was enacted to produce. We read in the news that as many as 6,500 construction workers will be employed to build the sites in Springfield, Everett and Plainville. And once the casino resorts are open another 10,000 permanent jobs that pay good wages with benefits will be available.
Those who oppose allowing any casino businesses in Massachusetts would have us believe that the jobs are limited to black jack card dealers, roulette wheel spinners and cashiers. They are so wrong! Resort casinos today are complex modern businesses that employ a wide range of job descriptions. A casino resort payroll will include restaurant managers, secretaries, bookkeepers, accountants, entertainers, interior decorators, painters, plumbers, electricians, chefs, bartenders, receptionists, security personnel, health club trainers, hairdressers, spa staff and dozens of other job categories. Add to that the jobs that will be created through the casino contracts for goods and services with local vendors and businesses.
I must admit I wince when I hear people like Scott Harshbarger or professors from Harvard Univ (all of whom easily earn over six figures a year) berating these jobs as not in keeping with what we want for jobs in Massachusetts. So elitist and out of touch with the 200,000 unemployed men and women (most of whom have no degree to market) who need secure permanent job opportunities that pay a living wage RIGHT NOW. Jobs created by resort casino-hotel-tourism venues will help thousands of them and their families make it in Massachusetts.
Will the new resort casinos and gaming venue in Springfield, Everett and Plainville generate the exact number of jobs and increased tax revenue predicted by the Governor? Maybe not, but if they generate only half of what’s predicted it will be a big plus for the regional economies involved.
If Massachusetts residents are spending a $ Billion a year at casinos in CT, ME and RI which generates in the area of $400 million in tax dollars for those states every year, why not give them an in-state place to drop those entertainment dollars?! What is really the harm here. It’s an adult choice of where you decide to spend your money.
I think that $400 Million a year would help right in this state to fund many of the programs people on this BMG site are calling for but which the state has no money for now.
Lastly, and maybe the most important reason I will be voting NO on this question: I resent it when one group of people seem to think they are more qualified than I am to decide how to spend my time and money and feel the need to protect me from myself.
(Note: I am not a gambler. I do not go to casinos and have no interest in ever doing so. )
John Tehan says
See the post I just published:
http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2014/09/vote-yes-on-question-3-casinos-threaten-our-jobs/
Casinos will eat more jobs than they create, and they are likely to create more problem gamblers than jobs – which is exactly what happened in Illinois!
dave-from-hvad says
Based on the arguments I’ve seen many times here over the pros and cons of casinos, the opponents have contended that casinos create more economic and societal problems than they solve. Their object hasn’t been to protect people from themselves, other than to point out increased gambling addiction as one of the negatives of relying on casinos for state revenue.
Patrick says
Good thing none of these individuals have spouses, children, or other family that will also be hurt by their actions.
hlpeary says
Patrick: I was listening to Jim & Margery on BUR when Boston’s new Mayor Marty Walsh was their guest…someone called in an said that they hoped Mayor Walsh would reverse his support for allowing casinos in Massachusetts. The caller explained that his own brother was addicted to gambling and it hurt the family and if the state let casinos businesses open in Massachusetts it would drive his brother over the edge and start him gambling uncontrollably again. Mayor Walsh had a thoughtful answer. He said he personally knew a lot about addiction and what it takes to overcome one. He said to the caller that he was sorry the caller’s family had to deal with an addicted brother BUT that whether casinos were here or not would not make a difference to the brother. He explained that every addict fights a personal battle every day…it’s an internal struggle…He said if the caller’s brother loses his resolve on any day he will travel any distance it takes to gamble whether it be to the corner store to play Keno or to Atlantic City to play blackjack…He said whether we have casino resorts in MA will not be the deciding factor. That made sense to me. I know people who struggle with addiction to drugs, alcohol and/or tobacco…they live in a world where painkillers, liquor and cigarettes are legal products used by people around them…it is their personal battle to reject them…and I think Mayor Walsh is right about this.
No matter how you cut the numbers depending on which report you read, whether you say 3% or 5% of all casino resort patrons might be prone to addiction to gambling, that still leaves at least 95% of the patrons visiting casinos for entertainment and being responsible about what they spend there. What percentage of people who shop in liquor, beer and wine stores will become alcoholics? What percentage of people who frequent local convenience stores (where tobacco products and lottery sales are displayed at every register) will become addicted to cigarettes or scratch tickets? Alcoholism, lottery fever and tobacco use can hurt families who have a member prone to addictive behavior and those addictions should be treated but I don’t think closing down the stores where they can be purchased by non-addicted people is the answer to their problem.
sabutai says
Each addict has a personal battle to end addiction. And those around them have an obligation to help. Do you blow cigarette smoke into the face of someone trying to quit? Do you take about how refreshing a cold beer is to a recovering alcoholic?
That’s what the pro-gambling people want to do. You don’t think the billboards, the ads in every medium, the addition to the skyline of these casinos won’t have the same effect? They survive on addicts, and thrive on enabling addiction. Just because Mayor Walsh can have an easier time balancing his budget on the back of this addiction doesn’t make it right.
Christopher says
JConway has stuck to the economic factors, but I’m still getting the exploitation vibe from Les Bernal.
hlpeary says
@ Dave…. I wrote ” resent it when….” I was speaking for ME, thus the “I” at the beginning of the sentence…I wasn’t speaking for any group…just me…people vote for many reasons and MOST of them it turns out are personally, not group think…I know someone who is voting for Q3 because he lost 52 bucks once and the drinks were not free!…I know another who is voting No on Q3 because she is sick of driving 2 x a year to CT and wants a shorter ride to have a day at a casino with dinner and a show…go figure…As Truman said (before Tip O’Neill) All politics is local and he didn’t mean the town, he mean the kitchen table.
hlpeary says
n/t
Patrick says
I hates them so much. You have convinced me to vote No. Who cares if not even half of the proposed casino benefits materialize, or that we’ll all be on the hook for a bailout at some future date, or that your individual liberty argument works just as well for drug dealers? No, because jobs and unicorns.
hlpeary says
The state is not putting up any money to develop these businesses (as it does with other companies who have promised jobs)…In fact, haven’t these developers already paid huge sums to the state to even bid for a license? Think so. Businesses rise and fall on the market. If any of these resort casinos fail, it won’t be taxpayers who pay the tab, it will be the business owners. Google around, get some facts to back up your opinion…try this one out: (http://www.milforddailynews.com/article/20140928/OPINION/140926727/11567/OPINION) From the Milford Daily News Editorial:…”Headline-writers to the contrary, Massachusetts did not “bet” on casinos. There’s no state money invested in these projects; even the cost of the casino licensing process is borne by the applicants. This is one case where employers are coming here without having to be bribed with tax breaks and special favors. If it’s a gamble, the risk is theirs.
Massachusetts is not Atlantic City. We aren’t putting all our economic development eggs in the tourism basket. We haven’t opened our doors wide to casino operators, just wide enough to let a few communities welcome them in. The state’s licensing process has transformed the casino issue from a generalized threat – or boon – to the commonwealth to specific proposals in a small number of specific communities. As voters consider the question on the November ballot repealing the casino legislation, those detailed proposals are more helpful than fears based on flawed comparisons to what went wrong in some other state.”
Read the whole Editorial for a common sense view of the facts.
Patrick says
The state is not putting up any money yet.
David says
That probably won’t turn out to be true. Businesses – at least businesses the size of these casinos – don’t just fail. They struggle; they fail to meet expectations; they ask for help from the state; a strapped state, anxious about revenue targets and not sure what else to do, obliges; lather, rinse, repeat; then finally the business fails, after consuming a bunch of futile taxpayer-funded bailouts of various kinds.
Trickle up says
This statement is either disingenuous or abnormally obtuse.
Expenditure of state funds is a very narrow and peculiar metric that we do not accept as adequate for other projects that will affect lots of people.
This one is constructed for the purpose of sucking hundreds of millions of dollars from our whole economy annually and delivering them far away from Massachusetts.
That’s its purpose.
There are likely effects on state and local services and taxes from casinos and slots barns. Beyond that are economic and societal effects on individuals, families, institutions, municipalities.
johntmay says
Are all modern day examples of why your post is based on false premises and foolish assumptions.
doubleman says
The “new” jobs are not quality permanent jobs. They are often coming from closed local businesses, and the casino industry (outside of Las Vegas) is struggling. There’s no good reason to think that adding more casinos in New England will reverse that trend.
hlpeary says
Casino resort-related full time jobs pay a median $43K per year (according to the Globe coverage of the Gaming Commission, Wynn’s Everett proposal pays a higher median than that…but, the Springfield Republican, touts the MGM Springfield project as having jobs with $43K as median) ….These jobs have health and retirement benefits…considering how many people are looking for work that does not require a college degree or a job that provides training and the possibility to advance…these thousands of jobs look like a “quality” opportunity especially in regions of the state where unemployment is in double digits still. And that’s a good reason enough to bring a limited number of casino/resort/hotel facilities to Massachusetts.
doubleman says
One definition of quality is a job not likely to disappear in a short time, or one that will harm other local businesses so that if a casino fails, the fallout could be much greater than normal. You are completely ignoring the record from other states and the current state of the casino industry across the country (excluding Nevada).
Yes, if that’s the only thing that happens. The evidence from other states don’t paint a compelling picture. While casinos will create jobs, it is not at all clear that these jobs will be permanent or that they will represent net job creation. I’m not willing to bet that Massachusetts bucks every trend with casinos.
johntmay says
Even so, $43K a year is not enough to raise a family and by your own statistic half the workers make less than that. In Nevada, they are looking to attract high tech manufacturing with the Tesla plant. In New Jersey, they are looking to convert their bankrupt and abandoned casinos into universities. Is it your elitist and out of touch attitude that the citizens of Springfield cannot handle jobs in these fields and all they are capable of are simple minded service jobs?
methuenprogressive says
Move along, folks.
merrimackguy says
So they must be okay.
John Tehan says
…and I’m voting Yes on 3 to repeal the casino mess.
SomervilleTom says
and I’m voting Yes on 3 to repeal the casino mess.
If “Yes on 3” proponents tie this question to Martha Coakley, we will LOSE.
It seems to me that there are several groups of potential voters that need to be attracted:
– Primary voters who supported Don Berwick in part because of his opposition to casinos
– People who did not vote in the primary because none of the gubernatorial candidates (Republican or Democrat) who had a prayer of winning opposed casino gambling
– Primary voters who turned out to support Maura Healey BECAUSE of her stand against casino gambling — in stark contrast to both her opponent and her predecessor — and who did NOT vote for Martha Coakley
– Voters who hold their nose while supporting Charlie Baker in spite of his support for casino gambling (perhaps because of their desire to end “one party rule” in MA).
In my view, it is CRUCIAL to create a welcoming hearth for those who steadfastly oppose BOTH casino gambling AND Martha Coakley. If the “Yes on 3” campaign becomes just another “rah rah Martha” group, the ballot question will fail.