Holy Cow. Is the Governor about to submit a budget that includes casino revenues? Right about now I'd like to point out that no casinos have yet been built in Massachusetts. Just as Enron banked projected profits for projects that didn't yet exist, our Gov. is considering including revenues from a Mirage.
Furthermore, here's more evidence that the Governor's projected figures on gambling are rather untethered from reality.
Here’s one left-over thought from Wednesday’s casino revenue hearing at the State House: It’s unfortunate that the Globe decided to run a story on the front of its Metro section reporting on an investment banker’s forecast of how much money a Boston casino could generate.
The numbers quoted in the story are at best, wildly optimistic, and at worst, posturing by a group with a vested interest in getting the casino legislation passed.
…
To get a sense of just how out of left field the investment banker’s numbers are, I called UMass Dartmouth Professor Clyde Barrow. Keep in mind that Barrow, a man so bullish on the economic impact of casinos that some consider him a biased source, estimated that the three proposed Massachusetts casinos would bring in a combined $1.5 billion in revenue.
“I think it’s at the high end of anybody’s estimates,” Barrow said of Shea’s projection. “I’d be very surprised to see it actually reach that level, but it’s conceivable…Basically it would mean that the Boston casino would have to become a national and international destination.”
Clyde Barrow, widely known as a gambling shill “optimist”, thinks that the Bear Sterns investor guy's projection is pie-in-the-sky.
If a “no new taxes” pledge was a “gimmick,” as Patrick repeatedly and correctly said in the campaign, what the hell is this?
When we’re not laughing our a$$es off at the absurdity of the mere suggestion, we are crying in our cups at being fools for spending our time, money and passion on the past election. The deficit of clarity in decision making is way beyond the drapes and the caddy. It’s real.
Aside from the fact that Patrick’s tactic could easily backfire and lead to a discussion on how badly he’s handled the casino gambling issue, the story reflects on just how powerless and ineffective he is and has been.
<
p>He’s made the potentially fatal error of taking on too much, particularly in too short a time.
<
p>He should have spent his first year on managerial stuff, getting good people into place and learning the ropes,exposing and developing existing issues (like bridges and highways) as they come up, and developing political capital.
<
p>After almost a year in office, he should have presented one big issue to deal with, like education. Toward the end of his first term, if he had decided to support casino gambling, he could have used that as a campaign issue. There’s enough support for it.
<
p>Instead he’s promoting a casino package the details of which I’m not sure he mastered and a reinvention of education that stands to cost more than we can hope to afford. And he’s trying to work with an intransigent speaker who has far more political clout and skill.
<
p>Mark
<
p>
Here’s a snippet from what I wrote on my site today:
<
p>During the hearing I went to in which Governor Patrick and a whole host of his aides spoke on this very topic, the administration said licensing fees shouldn’t be spent on the general budget, because it’s a one time fix. Apparently, to put added pressure on the legislature to pass casinos before the House and Senate have properly vetted it, the Governor is willing to forgo that sage advice. Using the licensing fees to help balance this state’s budget is even worse than dipping into reserve funds, because at least there’s more reserve funds – we won’t run out of them after using them next year. If we counted on licensing fees that money would be gone in a year.
and I went back and reread it twice. The governor will begin spending money we will hypothetically receive to impose a timeline on the legislature to foster, authorize and promote casinos. I then had the thought that the man has gone mad as well as his minions and sychophants. Does no one in the executive office with to forestall this seemingly inevitable train wreck? This is no different than writing hot checks, which is a crime.
<
p>I’m not trying to be nasty or sarcastic, but didn’t you folks have any kind of an inkling that this guy was an incompetent. Go back and take another look at his CV. What has this guy done in the past? Essentially nothing. Appointed positions that he departed from prior to the expiration of his terms and him suing his boss.
<
p>Now we are stuck with this coat holder for another three years. Personally, I think that his wife had a breakdown because she realized that he is way in over his head and when the house of cards comes down, she is going with it. Perhaps his wife should be the defacto governor. We are now screwed. Di masi has to babysit simple simon for three more years and Therese Murray is as silent as a church mouse. What is going on up there. Are they waiting for patrick to resign?
Because conservatives can’t hit even this easy a target without screwing up. A perfectly sensible critique of Patrick is marred by an unneeded slag on his wife’s mental health, and it devolves from there. You attack people who one would expect you’d be trying to seduce — those questioning their support for Deval.
<
p>We’re going to have parades of Devals if this is the comparative.
And now you have the temerity to say, “oops, we made a mistake”. Mistake? I’m the guy who has to hold the bag for your mistake. I’m the homeowner, I’m the guy paying 30% of my income in taxes irrespective of sales taxes. I’m the guy having to buy the case of KY prior to 15 April. Many of you students go merrily on your way whistling into the wind because you haven’t a care in the world. If it all blows up, what do you care?
<
p>I was not demeaning Mrs. Patrick. The allusion was that perhaps the precipitant to her emotional overload is her nitwit husband, who I have a suspicion, browbeats the hell out of her. She has a nice job, she would probably like to keep it since the governor seems to have the family drowning in red ink.
<
p>Nice choice for governor. Perhaps Ms. Wilkerson will be the follow up act.
<
p>Contrary to the drum beating of older conservatives, those younger students will be living in this country too, and will be living by the decisions made now [and those made 10, 20, and 30 years ago] longer than cats like MCRD.
<
p>If it all blows up [like massive deficit and debt incurred while shortchanging education and infrastructure so that we can have tax cuts for the rich [37th, 38th, 40th, 41st, 43rd], it’s those young students who’ll have to live with the damage the longest.
<
p>So lose the “they’re less relevant” tack please. It’s ugly, divisive, and holier than thou.
Didn’t campaign for him, didn’t vote for him in the primary or general. Hoping Tim Murray goes up against him in three years. Nor am I “one of you students”. I’m a working professional thanks. Funny how assumptions can make one look foolish.
<
p>Now, far as I can tell, our income tax rates were set by over the last dozen years of Republican governors (with assists from a Republican Congress and a Republican president), so maybe you want to ask them about the KY jelly — many prominent Republicans seem to be intimately familiar with its many uses. Your allusion to Mrs. Patrick was just a sad excuse to reinvoke her minor mental health difficulties, mainly because conservatives have nothing to offer in this state except whining and assumptions.
<
p>~~~
What I don’t say here, I say here.
Except for a couple of whines about others not being nice to him, Patrick had a good campaign. He also seemed Progressive. Our other alternatives?
<
p>Reilly’s campaign was sooooooo baaaad, it’s hard to imagine him being a better governor than Patrick. I couldn’t help feeling that O’Reilly felt he deserved the nomination because he was the last Irish guy standing.
<
p>Gabrieli seems like a good guy, but there’s nothing to suggest he’d have been any more effective than Patrick.
<
p>The problem with governmental outsiders is that they often don’t understand what it means to govern. Patrick never had an elected position. Neither did Gabrieli. And Reilly was never an elected representative. Look at NY. Democrats were similarly enthusiastic about Spitzer, who I think has more on the ball than Deval, but he’s in even worse shape in NY.
<
p>And as far as candidates go…
<
p>Kerry Healey? I know she had all that experience on some school committee and after a failed run for the legislature her husband bought her the chair of the RSC (and the Lt. Gov.), but what did she have to offer? She never even took the bar exam.
<
p>And her campaign was at least as bad as Reilly’s.
<
p>Mark
<
p>
But I’m pretty sure if I was doing the books for the State, I’d catch that litttle itty bitty detail.
I agree that the $1.5 billion in total annual casino gambling revenue estimates endorsed by Gov. Patrick and Bear Stearns probably represents an unduly optimistic revenue estimate. It also fails to take into account the adverse impact the casino gambling explosion will have on the state revenue earned from our current state-sponsored gambling outlets such as the Massachusetts Lottery and thoroughbred and greyhound racing.
<
p>Regardless of the accuracy of this revenue estimate, Governor Patrick’s “budget gimmick” underscores that the political relationship between Gov. Patrick and Speaker DiMasi has deteriorated substantially over the last year.
<
p>Speaker DiMasi has adamantly refused to negotiate, in good faith, over Patrick’s proposal to close nearly $400 million in corporate tax loopholes. Moreover, the Speaker has also exhibited a similar intransigence about reducing the spending of non-essential functions of state government, eliminating duplicative administrative agencies and independent state authorities, and privatizing wasteful and unnecessary state agencies such as the Massachusetts Lottery.
<
p>The Speaker’s foolhardy approach in refusing to address a $1.3-1.5 billion deficit for the next fiscal year with constructive revenue and spending proposals of his own represents the worst form of political irresponsibility. Personally, I am opposed to Gov. Patrick’s casino gambling proposal because I believe its intense scale and wide scope will have a very detrimental effect on the quality of life in Massachusetts. I also doubt whether the casino gambling proposal of the Governor will provide the long-term revenue panacea Gov. Patrick and his allies seem to believe it promises.
<
p>Nevertheless, the Governor, at least, has offered some revenue-side proposals, which while still needing to be complemented by spending-side reductions and cost efficiencies, begin to address the existing structural fiscal deficit Massachusetts has blithely ignored for too many years of Republican and Democratic rule. If Speaker DiMasi continues to behave like an ostrich rather than the 2nd most powerful politician in state government, then I suggest that the Governor rev up the grass-roots Deval Patrick.com political machine again to pressure the Speaker and rally the Governor’s allies in the Legislature to craft and force through a budget that addresses the long-term structural deficit of Massachusetts in a fiscally prudent manner that balances revenue enhancements with significant spending cuts, cost efficiencies, and the elimination of wasteful and duplicative spending. (Let’s start with privatizing the Mass. Lottery and the Mass. Turnpike, and abolishing most of the quasi-independent state authorities that annually run up our long-term debt to advance dubious policy and fiscal schemes, enrich Wall Street debt equity firms like Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs, and escape any political accountability except when gross mismanagement or egregious political corruption has been uncovered.)
<
p>I would even (reluctantly) support such a fiscally sound FY 2009 budget by the Governor and his dissident allies in the Legislature if it included realistic revenue estimates emanating from the construction of a SINGLE casino in Massachusetts. However, I draw the limit at approving one casino in Mass. If Governor Patrick insists on betting the state’s fiscal house on constructing THREE casinos in the Bay State, he can count me out of participating or even observing the transformation of Massachusetts into Monte Carlo night 365 days a year. At that point, I make my break to join our friends in the Ocean State to live contently (and free of the 24/7 jarring jingling and neon lights signifying another Mass resident getting fleeced by the house) just over the Mass. border, where Governor Carcieri has continually resisted the siren calls of casino operators, despite an even more cumbersome fiscal situation in Rhode Island.
Once you open it up, you can’t control it, because of the way federal law works. If there’s one legal slot machine in Massachusetts, tribes can use a federal process to open up casinos on land they purchase in the state… and they don’t even have to pay a lick toward state taxes.
<
p>So, unfortunately, Governor Patrick couldn’t just allow one license and then be done with it. If he gives up one license, allowing for Class 3 gambling in this state (which includes slots), then the door is opened for tribal casinos in Massachusetts… which is a kind of casino that not only can we not tax, but we couldn’t regulate either.
I do not believe (correct me if I am wrong) that there is anything in federal law that requires Governor Patrick to grant additional Class 3 gambling licenses to non-tribal entities once he strikes a compact with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe for the proposed Indian casino in Middleboro.
<
p>As part of the Federal Indian Gaming Act compact Governor Patrick must with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, a Governor is entitled to negotiate a fixed percentage of slot machine and other licensed gaming revenue earned through Indian gaming activities in exchange for granting the license and exclusivity rights.
<
p>In Connecticut, the Mohegans (operators of Mohegan Sun) and the Pequots (operators of Foxwoods) each must contribute 25% of gross slot machine revenue to the state on a monthly basis. If either tribe’s contribution falls below $ 80 million in any year (it never has since both casinos opened), its rate increases to 30% in order to ensure a combined $ 160 million minimum annual contribution from the tribes. The tribes’ obligation to pay Connecticut ceases if the state legalized the operation of slot machines anywhere else within Connecticut. Since 1993, Foxwoods, alone, has given over $2.563 billion in slot machines revenue to the state of CT. In October 2007, Foxwoods sent 15.4 million in slot revenues to the state.
<
p>What legal restriction prevents Governor Patrick from negotiating an even more favorable revenue agreement with the Wampanoag tribe that includes the state obtaining a percentage of not only revenue from slots but also table games in exchange for granting the tribe exclusive Class 3 gambling rights in Massachusetts?
2 things:
<
p>1. According to federal law, that would still open the door to more tribal casinos. Note that there are already two other tribes who have come up saying they’d persue tribal casinos if the Middleboro proposal went through.
<
p>Mohegan could have avoided the compact that they’re in now if they decided not to enter into a state deal, but they decided against it because the federal process to gain approval to build a tribal casino (avoiding paying state taxes on them in the process) does take several extra years and obviously must cost the tribe a lot of money and time in legal expenses just to even start the building process.
<
p>2. It’s all moot, anyway, because Deval Patrick loves the 3-casino idea – and the state stands to gain more by issuing licenses to private entities, to the tune of both higher taxes and auctioning off licenses every 10 years that would be collectively worth nearly 600-800 million dollars up front. What’s important here is that it looks like the Middleboro project would skip trying to gain a state license and move right onto the federal process, since they’ve refused to take part in any of the discussion surrounding Governor Patrick’s proposal, and they’ve refused to reveal the deal they signed with the people who run the Mohegans with their own tribe, never mind the state of Massachusetts (and given how the tribe that owns the land the Mohegan Sun is operated on has earned less than the top execs of Mohegan Sun, it’s obviously been something that’s pissed off state legislators on Beacon Hill).
There has never been Republican rule. There are no Republicans left remaining in the legislature, but a handfull. It’s a unicameral house. The house speaker thus controls the state. The house speaker controls the vertical and the horizontal.
<
p>As song as we have a legislature that is all of one party you will have a ship without an effective captain. Shame on the republican party for not fielding more candidates and shame on the Massachusetts taxpayers for voting party rather than candidate. We get what we deserve in MA. We have no one to blame but ourselves. I too am about to pull the plug and leave. This is a dog chasing its tail.
Here’s one left-over thought from Wednesday’s casino revenue hearing at the State House: It’s unfortunate that the Globe decided to run a story on the front of its Metro section reporting on an investment banker’s forecast of how much money a Boston casino could generate.
<
p>…most investment bankers’ forecasts of projects’ profitability have been wildly off the mark. It’s happened with convention centers, sports statdiums and the like. Why should casinos be any better?
<
p>They just want to dangle sugar plum fairies in front of peoples’ eyes to get commissions for securitizing the bonds on the public market.
…comes to mind…we’re having all sorts of trouble with profitability up here.