Cross-posted from Media Nation.
The Boston Globe's Frank Phillips reports that Gov. Deval Patrick has decided to support three Massachusetts casinos. Under his plan, the state would put them out to bid, and the Mashpee Wampanoags would receive no special consideration. Given the avalanche of trouble under which the tribe's proposed venue in Middleborough has fallen, I'll stick with my prediction that that particular casino will never be built.
(Update: Or should I say backdate? Boston Herald reporters Scott Van Voorhis and Casey Ross had essentially the same story yesterday.)
But this isn't just a tragedy — it's a tragedy foretold. Patrick and the officials around him have been watching as the Middleborough proposal has dissolved into corruption, investigations and recriminations. Three of the five selectmen who support the plan face a recall election, and the other two, also casino supporters, would if they hadn't been elected too recently. Patrick knows exactly what he's getting into; his eyes are wide open. He's putting his entire governorship at risk, and he's doing it strictly for money.
Will House Speaker Sal DiMasi stand in Patrick's way? He's a longtime opponent, and Phillips reports that DiMasi's recent conciliatory rhetoric on the issue is nothing more than an attempt to avoid embarrassing Patrick. It shouldn't take a huge amount of backbone on DiMasi's part to stick to his principled position. He'll have Cardinal Seán O'Malley, former attorney general Scott Harshbarger, former John Hancock chief executive David D'Alessandro and a host of other good people in his corner. The governor must be stopped. Together we can!
As I wrote this morning at TER, I think that Governor Patrick may pay a very high political price for this decision.
Dan you are right again,
He is putting the entire Commonwealth at risk and whoring it out but good.
said Senate Ways and Means chairman Steven C. Panagiotakos, a Lowell Democrat, referring to the state's projected take from the three proposed casinos.
Certifiable chump-change after mitigating the costs of the Gaming Commission, on-going litigations, crime, and human tragedy.
Jump over to boston.com and vote on the stupid proposal.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/09/16/casino_survey91607/
I think that Governor Patrick has turned a corner as our Governor making a tough decission on an issue he had little control over. His decission will turn a losing proposition for our State into at the very least a nuetral one. Now we are looking at having the revenue to deal with the negative problems, something we would not have had if we allowed the Federal license process to move forward with no state oversight. Many of the issues of greatest concern this state is already dealing with as a result of the 2 casino's just minutes to our south. The real test for the governor is just beginning not ending with this decission now we have to deal with the infrastructure and the funding for the social safety net we have lacked for to long. Casino's are not going to bring a new problem to Massachusetts, like Gambling addictions, that's been here for decades look at the race tracks in our state or look at the lines for lottery ticket's in every corner store or visit a Keno parlor or even look back in the news papers at the stories about numbers rackets run on street corners. Legal gambling will help provide the revenue to help deal with some of these social problem with out having to fight for shrinking revenue as it must now.
I think the other fact you clearly over look is the governor has no real options to put this genie back in the bottle a casino will be built in Massachusetts on Federal land as has happened in scores of states already. What his decission assures us is the control of this issue now returns to the State both the Legislature and the Exective branch to determine how, when and where and who will pay for it. I applaud him and his team for looking at the issues from all angles.
Time will tell how we move forward, with what kind of legislation, to make this a good decission, I think it is up to the Speaker and the Senate President to form that legislation that will make this a positive not a negative for the residents of Massachusetts.
WoburnDem
But, I suspect this new revenue stream will spark more competition among advocates accross all sectors as they all try to partner with casino developers and propose “earmaking” some of the gambling revenues to worthy, popular programs instead of going into the general fund for all the advocates to fight over. Ah well, as Ben Franklin said “Democracy is an invitation to struggle”
The obvious answer is the residents of the commonwealth. Do not assume for one minute that this is “disposable” income. This will be a man or a woman's weeks pay. This will be rent money, money for heat, money for groceries, money for the kids.
Yes of course, there will be a few people that will have the dough to blow, but I would bet the the largest group of people will be wage earners, and after a few free drinks—there goes the car payment.
Governor Patrick has burned his last bridge with me. At first I was suspicious and wary, but then he seemed sincere and seemed to have a vague idea what he was doing. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. No more. After the last several months and more specifically the last several weeks, this guy has screwed up everything he has touched, when he wasn't vacationing in his 5 million dollar home .
Now we are looking at THREE casino mega complex's. I hope the governor got thirty mil in a secret Swiss account for this kiss to this sleazy business. A one termer? I'll bet this guy leaves before the next two years.
We get the government we deserve and boy—-we are about to get paid back in spades.
In my home state of Michigan casinos did NOT replace the revenue from the loss of good jobs, as the auto industry shrinks every year.
Further, in checking out the impact on Greektown [in Detroit] of the Greektown casino, the lively – onece tourist friendly area has had ALL of its life sucked out of it. You walk one block from the glittering neon of the casionos and all that is there are abandoned buildings.
Massachusetts needs good manufacturing jobs, good high tech jobs, a return of industry and the creation of goods and meaningful services, not peonage jobs…with no future.
It may be “inevitable” and three may in some ways be better than one MegaMess, and having the MoneyPit Moguls bid against one another may max our take – but casinos do NOT breed prosperity, good jobs, or even economic development. They are the equivalent of having a giant growth in the number of jobs in fast food restaurants…
In my home state of Michigan casinos did NOT replace the revenue from the loss of good jobs, as the auto industry shrinks every year.
Further, in checking out the impact on Greektown [in Detroit] of the Greektown casino, the lively – once tourist friendly area has had ALL of its life sucked out of it. You walk one block from the glittering neon of the casionos and all that is there are abandoned buildings.
Massachusetts needs good manufacturing jobs, good high tech jobs, a return of industry and the creation of goods and meaningful services, not peonage jobs…with no future.
It may be “inevitable” and three may in some ways be better than one MegaMess, and having the MoneyPit Moguls bid against one another may max our take – but casinos do NOT breed prosperity, good jobs, or even economic development. They are the equivalent of having a giant growth in the number of jobs in fast food restaurants…
But the bottom line is that the Governor's decision is bad public policy. I supported him for Governor and spent a lot of time making phone calls for him. This decision is such a disappointment.
You assert that the Governor had no choice and that by allowing three casinos in, the state maintains some control. This argument is completely disingenuous. The reason the Governor decided to allow casinos is for the revenue they will bring in the short-term. He has decided to ignore the costs they will cause in the long-term. For example, see reports by two University of Illinois professors here and here In addition, those of us who think this is a bad decision have a different, better view of Massachusetts, one that we thought the Governor shared when he ran. I guess we were wrong.
Your statement:
is incorrect. Governor Patrick did have a choice If he had decided no to casinos in Massachusetts, there would be no casinos. By deciding to allow three, he actually could be allowing four casinos. If the Wampanoag Tribe does not obtain one of the three permits, it will still be able to open a casino eventually.
Don't forget the one the Mohegans are interested in building in Palmer.
However, it would be three in the competitive bid process as currently being pre-floated by the Patrick Administration. Mashpee Wampanoags and Aquinnah Wampanoags (and other yet to be recognized tribes?) could pursue the lengthier federal process if they did not “win” the competitive bid or chose not to participate. [http://www.boston.co…]
The Mohegan Sun exclusive agreement with developer Northeast Realty to plan/develop a casino in Palmer is not an Indian tribe arrangement, it's purely for the wampum ($$$$$$$$$$$$$), not connected in any universe as retribution for crimes against the native American.
I would respectfully disagree on the prospect of new revenues from a casino or casinos. If one looks at this, you have to ask yourself where the revenues come from and how much it costs to collect them. If casinos are projected to bring in $400 to 450 million, then how much new revenue does this actually give us?
Well, there was a paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 2005 (in September 2005, I believe). It states that their research indicates that 30-70% of a casino’s take is actually economic transfer of activity already in the area surrounding the casinos. Since Massachusetts is already one of the top tourism states in the US, we are probably closer to the high percentage, but let's split this down the middle and take 50%. As an aside, I believe that this figure is probably higher as most of our gamblers will come from within our own borders. (Generally it is accepted that over 50% of the gamblers at an area casino come from a 50-mile radius.) At 50%, the amount of money taken in already in our economy would be $200-250 million. That is not new revenue then, but is money already here and spent locally in many different businesses that would suffer from a casino opening. In some cases, the state makes more revenue on that spending as that economic activity adds value to parts of our economy and churns, unlike entertainment revenue. However, again, let's be generous and treat all revenue as equal. So our new revenues from a casino would then be $200-250 million.
Now we have to ask how much it costs us to get this revenue. If we were to add up the cost of increased public safety, administration from a gaming commission, the public investment needed to offset the social costs of increased compulsive gambling, and public infrastructure needed on an annual basis (using per capita averages from other gambling states), we are well over $200-250 million. So at this point, we should not do this based on the economics. I hope that the public and press look at this as it takes away the economic argument. It makes the call for casinos to produce needed revenue nothing more than a political cover to spend more money on public programs. At some point the bills come due and that is the insidious part of opening casinos in ones state. The casino interests then call for increasing the amount of slot machines or building new casinos to cover the needed revenue. It gets us on a vicious cycle that leads us to more and more gambling to cover our revenue needs.
But the actual situation is worse than this. We will see a hit to the bottom line of our lottery revenues. Some here have asked what the difference is between lottery and casinos. There are several. First, we already have the lottery and that should be a cautionary tale when looking to expand our reliance on gaming as a source of revenue. First, we are hooked on the lottery revenues now and shouldn't exacerbate this situation. Like it or not, the lottery is already here and we can't get rid of it without creating a hole in the discretionary funds sent back to cities and towns. They would scream bloody murder if we did that. Second, it shows how, gradually, we become more reliant on gaming revenues until they control our decision rather than the state making sound revenue decisions. Remember, we started the lottery out with a little green ticket for a daily drawing and that was going to pay for our k-12 education system in the Commonwealth. Since then we have added three weekly drawings and then made those drawings biweekly. We have expanded the daily number to Sundays and have added the Big Game, a multi-state drawing. We have more than 40 scratch tickets out at any one time, and a Keno game is drawn every four minutes most of the day. Once you start this, you lose control as we become hooked on the revenues. Lastly, substituting casino revenues for lottery revenues isn’t a dollar-to-dollar proposition. We make more on every lottery dollar, far more than we will on every casino dollar, so the take (revenues) in casinos must be much greater just to break even. Consider this: we send approximately 26 cents of every dollar wagered in the lottery back to cities and towns, while an effective tax of 50% on net revenues from a casino would be about 4 cents on every dollar spent in a casino. That means that we need to lose six dollars in a casino for every dollar that we lose in lottery revenues just to run in place! Projected out, if we lose $150 million from the net proceeds to cities and towns from lottery losses, we would need to spend close to $6 billion dollars in gross losses in casinos just to run in place!
There are other reasons we shouldn't get involved in this, but I don't feel as if I need to go further. If the Governor thinks that we need to do this because we need the revenue, he is wrong. There are no new revenues to be derived from this and he shouldn't be allowed to make this claim. I am profoundly disappointed in this decision.
It is not my intent to debate this issue here, I am preparing my fourth report over the last ten years on this subject and will obviously have much more to say on this as it comes to the Legislature. However, given the amount of posting done on this subject here, I wanted to weigh in on the revenue argument.
I am a casino supporter, although I more oppose it's prohibition. I do admire your well thought out arguments and I look forward to one hell of a floor fight on this.
I hope you can get PBS or someone to broadcast this debate live. This is what the public should see legislators making very hard decisions because they are trying to pay for what we the public demand but refuse to pay for.
Best of luck.
This masterstroke bolsters the argument that the Democratic Party of this state has no constant principles. After promising tons of new spending, Deval threw out any sense of “together we can” to sell parts of this state to casino interests to pay for his promises. His policy will asphyxiate local small business, burden our infrastructure, raise crime rates (particularly white collar crime) and targets the poor who can't afford this. It pushes any NIMBY activists in Southeastern Massachusetts and Central Massachusetts right into the hands of the Republicans. That's right, Deval is pushing local activists away in the two araes of the state where the GOP still lcings to life.
I wish I could say that I'm disappointed, but I'm not. Deval hasn't shown any sense of leadership as a politican. Axelrod told him what to say, John Walsh turned out the votes. Hackocracy in action. He had a festive inauguration paid for by the insurance industry — kind of a marker if you will. He showed an utter lack of instinct on banal issues. He's pushed off commuter rail service for the Southeast — after repeatedly blowing off meetings he scheduled in this corner of the state. The budget process is about as lifelike as Joan Rivers. He meekly followed Terry Murray and Sal DiMasi on marriage equality, months after starting his inauguration day by meeting anti-equality ministers. As I said many, many months ago, he's the Ronald Reagan of the Democratic Party — looks good, sounds good, and that's about it. The only thing good about him would be good riddance.
That I would ever read the aforementioned from you.
I'm impressed!
…here in the Commonwelath to have a strong, clear voice like Rep. Dan Bosley looking at the issue of casino gambling. He is absolutely right-on with his analysis of the iffy economics of casinos. Another way to look at the issue is the huge debt level, and low savings rate in our country. The money is already being spent somewhere. At best casinos are just taking money that would go to another source. At worst they are causing more borrowing to feed the beast.
Kudos as well to Dan Kennedy.
Without a significant broad based tax increase of some sort I can't see a majority of legislators opposing casino's. If they wouldn't vote for taxes and they wouldn't vote for casino's then they can't go back home and tell their property tax paying constituents to continue to send them back to Beacon Hill.
I have no problem with casino's because we already allow gambling (lottery, racetracks, bingo, etc) so roughly the same economic and social arguments can be made against those activities as well.
The time has come to see this as just another economic interest in the state. It has it's benefits and drawbacks as does bars, professional sports, commercial development, life science, and on and on and on. For example the bio-terror lab in Boston certainly has some negatives but on the whole it's a wise economic investment for the state and the city.
Dan Bosley’s exhaustive comment above rips apart the idea of casino revenue being equivalent to lottery revenue.
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And to say the Bioterror lab in has “some negatives” shows a real lack of understanding about what the negatives are. BU officials have a history of hiding the truth when their employees contracted tularemia from their labs. We cannot trust them to tell us if something worse like anthrax escapes their labs in the future.
I don't equate the two. I think that casinos should be treated like any business venture and taxed appropriately.
On the BU subject The Feds should take what ever appropriate enforcement action against them in order ensure public safety but if MIT can have a nuclear reactor on campus their is no reason why BU cannot have the Bio-terror lab.
Regulatory enforcement is key to these dangerous fields but the answer is not to simple sick our heads in the sand. Bio-terror and our societies ability to respond is very important and Massachusetts is bettor off being the national leader that we should be in this field.
I see why you though I was equating the lottery to casino's but I intended to make only a political point.
Since casino's are being sold to the public a solution to high property taxes. So I think that this whole issue will get boiled down to “How are state elected officials going to provide lower property taxes?”
It this atmosphere a casino law is better than a tax increase. I just don't see the appetite for the dem's to pass major tax hikes since they just regained the Gov's office after 16 years. I would support a tax hike but I must also admit that I see the party's logic on this one. They are between a rock and a hard place.
Casino (aka Corruption) Tax vs other taxes has not been addressed by the Democratic “party”. Certain factions of the “party” are desperate for a quick solution to long-term structural problems and see the glitter of casinos in their cross-hairs.
Leadership (IMO) on the issue of taxation would be a Governor and Legislature laying out a fact-based plan to educate the citizens of the Commonwealth on the realities of the costs of running government. Meanwhile, trimming areas that could be trimmed (not in Romnesque 9c-style) while considering freezes on certain state wages and reform of state employee benefit packages to resemble something closer to private or even municipal packages. The effort to educate and move the Titanic away from the iceberg would likely take another 3 years, but how would a Governor be able to say 100,000 jobs were invented created during their re-election bid if he took the high road to sustainable and substantive economic growth?
This commonwealth is spending money we don't have. We have many feel good programs that will have to go on the back burner for a while. State workers will have to bite the bullet and go for a year or two without new contracts and wages. If you knew how much money some state workers made for the hours they put in you would be shocked.
One thing we must do and now is rebuild our infrastructure. It is vitally omperitive.
about what we can achieve together through OUR government to solve problems and achieve goals that we can't achieve alone, and how we're going to pay for it? Maybe instead of talking about creating one new revenue stream or increasing one old revenue stream at a time we start talking together about how to make our current revenue streams — taxes, fees, sucharges etc — more fair, more stable and adequate enough to build a good future for our families and our communities?
Where do we set up the brothels and opium dens. They are nothing but alternative sources of revenue.
If Deval Patrick makes it a YES on gambling, he should announce it in a public school classroom, to the lucky beneficiaries of the government's gambling business. “Hi, kids, I've done my homework, and I've decided to bring in more gambling — yes, on top of the lottery! — so we can pay for your books and teachers, “slots for tots,” as they say, because it's WAY easier than cutting out those billions of dollars in tax breaks and loopholes for big fat corporations.
Hey, anyone here have a parent who likes to gamble? Anyone lost your house or your college tuition yet? No? Well, my little friends, don't worry, that'll all become much easier now. And you should consider starting to gamble soon too, because it's good for the state, and good for your school! But not till you've done your homework! Keep up the good work, young winners and losers of tomorrow, we're here for you! Like I said, Together We Can!”
-Casino gambling does not raise state revenues, all new revenues will be offset by cuts in state spending and cuts to involuntary taxes like the income tax and especially corporate tax
-It replaces one form of corporate loss (corporate tax) with a form of corporate profit (casinos) with the government acting like the pimp in between
-It switches tax burdens from the rich to the poor
-The libertarian argument that they will gamble anyway is a poor one since they will not be gambling in such great numbers, nor in a house that always wins, nor with government sanction and government profit made
Well he has made several mistakes during his term and has been a woeful disappointment, I sincerely hope the legislature defeats this proposal and I will strongly consider Patricks opponent in the next election assuming he fails to redeem himself and the opponent is a viable one. Lucky for him he has three more years to redeem himself with sound progressive policies on education, healthcare, and hopefully some more fiscal conservatism. But this definitely sets him back significantly, and approving one and saying it was inevitable is not as bad as approving three and adding even more to the table, he clearly is in favor. And its also a flip flop, a public one since he said it several times, and a private one since he mentioned he opposed it in our one conversation. I am very disappointed.
No one wins in a casino or casino gambling except the casino. There is a very precise mathematical equation that exists that is used by the casino in which they are able to calculate in how many instances of laying your money down, that they are able to clean you out. The average American is unable to grasp this mathematical certainty and those who are least able to afford it wil alawys point to the individual who allegedly “wins”.
This whole proposition is insanity. Shame on the governor for even remotely considering the feasability of this debacle. The fact that he was a significant employee of one of the most disreputable shyster sub prime lenders is becoming more clear.
The fact that the Massachusetts electorate handily elected this man speaks volumes what PT Barnum observed re the American public.
Salisbury successfully fought a casino on their waterfront in 2000(?). It was one heck of of fight, and would have destroyed that region of the North Shore. Today, Salisbury is now becoming the “it” town, with Salisbury center is on its way to becoming an attractive and “classy” destination. Great planning, good jobs, NO casino.
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I think Partrick has made a pact with the devil (pun very much intended).
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Wow, am I disappointed in our governor (vast understatement).
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
In the end, Gov. Patrick will be judged on many more issues than 3 casinos in the state, just as Ed Rendell will be judged on more than the 5 (?) he's done in his state.
With the failure of the Legislature to take up tax loophole closing or fiscal independence for our cities and towns, it's easy to see this as the next “revenue generator” for property tax relief/social programs, and if so, so be it. Connecticut hasn't gone to hell in a handbasket, except maybe with all that traffic from other NE states.
Does BMG have an official position on Prohibition, after all, we do know what's best for the masses! :). Or as Marie Antoinette once said, “Let them buy lottery tickets”!