Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Casino, smeno!

By

  300million/year projected tax revenue (MTF projection)

– 125million lottery shortfall (plus additional drop at    

                  time of casino opening and inflation)

– 80million Gaming Commission cost

______________________________________________

= 95 million (pre-net)

– Attorney General Office (no budget calculated in the

               bill)

– State Police (no budget calculated in the bill – not a  

               cheap date)

– Centralized computer system purchase, maintenance and

                  personnel

– Real mitigation costs for law enforcement, education, infrastructure, housing, municipal burdens (~ 4 X casino bill amount of 75 million = 300million)*

– Real mitigation costs for social problems, bankruptcies (~ 2 X casino bill amount of 75 million = 150 million)*

= Net loss*

So, no money for infrastructure, education (MTA what are you smoking?), property tax relief, transportation or scratch cards.

The alleged licensing fees projected @ 800million don’t cover the net losses either.  The ka-ching only happens once in 10 years.

The bottom line is – it is a bad bill that was not created with transparency, was filed as an “Emergency” bill, lacks credibility, lacks representation by local/regional communities most severely impacted by the known negatives that are underfunded.  A huge bureaucracy would be created with no legislative oversight on a cash business.

The positive aspect continues to be the creation of prevailing wage construction jobs.  Some of those workers might be MA residents and others will not due to the transient nature of the construction biz.

As someone else pointed out in one of the other zillion posts on this subject, let’s reform taxation and redistribution to develop funding for the brownfields clean-up and school/municipal building renovation projected needed….everywhere.

*No independent studies commissioned or completed by the Administration with local/regional input to assess the current infrastructure capacity and enumerate true costs to mitigate.  

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Comments

    • The excessive fundraising, the corporate sponsored inaugural parties are all flags…clever people manipulating the systems.  Power and money…money and power.  Politics as usual on ‘roids.

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      p>But, nay not illegal.

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      p>                  

  2. MassInc’s recent release of Commonwealth Magazine Winter Edition has a compelling article written by Phil Primack, “Playing the numbers, Do Patrick’s casino projections add up?” has what many observers have been looking for with the casino bill/issue.

    <

    p>An interesting tid bit

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    p>

    The administration press release announcing the casino proposal claims “tens of thousands” of hardhat jobs. O’Connell suggests there will be 8,000 construction jobs per casino, based on his office’s look at construction job figures for recent casino developments elsewhere.

    But even this estimate, which would translate to 24,000 total construction jobs to build three resort casinos, seems optimistic. Consider, for example, construction employment at the biggest structure ever built in New England, the $800 million Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, which opened in 2004. Even at the peak of construction, no more than 3,000 construction workers were on site, according to Massachusetts Convention Center Authority Executive Director James Rooney. Mohegan Sun’s planned $740 million, 1.4 million square-foot expansion, which includes a 1,000-room hotel, additional casino space, and new restaurant and retail facilities, will employ 1,400 construction workers, according to a November 2006 Mohegan Sun press release.

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