Please tell the Democratic House that it is time to approve the governor’s casino proposal so that we can get the vital tax revenues and job creation that his legislation will create.
The House needs to be known for more than just saying “no” to substantive economic legislation. Fiddling and diddling while the state’s economy implodes is not conducive to running for re-election.
Imagine a national political tide in November that sweeps more Dems into the U.S. Senate and House while, here in Massachusetts, Democratic state legislators get burned on election day by local Republicans blaming Massachusetts’ economic freefall on a do-nothing Democratic legislature.
None of us want to see a reprise of 1990, when state voters elected a slew of new Republican state senators and state representatives.
Believe me, down-ballot state Democratics could be in trouble in November if the state’s economy continues to erode and all the Legislature has to point to is having passed legislation banning motorists from talking on cellphones.
Gte the three destination casinos approved. Create the 20-30K construction jobs. Create the 20,000 casino jobs. Talk about the tourism and hospitality growth that’ll evolve from the casinos. Talk about all the new economic development that’ll come about. Talk about all the $ that the casinos will have to spend to purchase goods and services from MA businesses. Talk about the $1.1B we’ll be recapturing from the CT casinos and RI slot parlors that Bay Staters spend at those facilities every year.
And all those naysayers? Well, tell the League of Women Voters and Dan Bosley and all the rest that when they pay my monthly mortgage and guarantee that I won’t be laid off from my job because the company is downsizing, that I’ll be glad to sit idle and let them dictate to me how I live my life and spend my money.
Until then, stop trying to impose your selfish and moralistic attidues on us.
Not wanting my little nieces to see prostitutes all over Middleboro is so selfish of me.
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p>Also, I find it hilarious that you see the small business-killing casino plan as a solution to creating private sector jobs.
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p>Frankly, I love gambling. Texas Hold ‘Em was a great supplement to my income freshman year in college. However, a casino ruining the local economy would be bad. If this is a “moralistic” attitude, well, too bad for you.
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p>Interesting hallucination.
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p>The casino proposal is a hack job to pressure the Lege to pass some revenue initiatives (which they should). Casinos are a net economic loser. I am not going to waste my time repeating what has been reiterated a zillion times on BMG.
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p>The job projections are false and the fantasy that there will be money left for roads/bridges or property tax relief is about as far fetched as your quote above. The formula for mitigation does not come close to the actual needs and it doesn’t include ANY funds for increased education burdens to the regions affected. Education is exceptionally negatively affected by casinos in the regions near casinos.
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p>Have you read the casino bill? It’s an embarrassment.
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p>It is?
for education in the casino bill. Review the status of school funding in the Commonwealth and the towns/cities abutting potential casino sites, they are all struggling. With increased enrollments, additional language mandates and special education costs that are not fully funded by the special education circuit breaker,
Each child in public schools costs between 9-12K per year to educate. Does anyone really think that service job wage earners pay enough in income or property taxes to offset the costs of educating their children? No, they do not. I am not suggesting that the formula and mandate to educate every child be tossed, I am simply stating the reality that the fiscal burden of the casinos (which is a different enterprise than other businesses) is on the backs of all taxpayers in the Commonwealth.
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p>We don’t have an unemployment problem in the Commonwealth, we have wage gap and skills gap issues. Casinos do not solve those problems. Chasing other industries with the fervor that the Governor has shown as a candidate and casino promoter would reap positive job creation.
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p>Brimfield abuts Palmer and Palmer is a proposed site. Brimfield students to Tantasqua High school, a regional school, which is well funded, highly ranked. Brimfield, if struggling, isn’t struggling so much that it has had to seek 2 1/2 overrides. One exception, but the first one I looked at, and it disproves your absolute statement.
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p>The service sector is the largest non-government sector in Mass. I disagree with your conclusion because the CURRENT service sector is the primary contributor to State GDP and taxes, and education.
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p>Say what you will about casinos, but you’ve not supported your blanket statement “it negatively impacts education”.
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Look at the profiles of Ware, Warren and Palmer on the DOE. Brimfield is part of the Tantasqua system largely supported by the wealth of Sturbridge. Sturbridge actively opposes casinos with the Board of Selectmen unanimously voting in opposition. Check out Wales and Holland while you’re at it. One of the elementary schools is a big room with dividers for classrooms.
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p>I did provide information on the additional fiscal burdens to school districts when there is population influx and it is a negative impact.
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p>It is precisely the desperation of the regions that has them posited as potential casino sites. Wealthier communities are not begging to become casino hosts.
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p>Please provide any information on how the additional funding of migrant workers housing, health care and social services will be accomplished to and for these regions that have had continuous loss of services over the past seven fiscal years.
Ware, Warren and Palmer, Holland and Wales. Of those, I recall only Palmer has attempted a 2 1/2 override. Besides, your statement said casinos are bad for education. Those towns, nor their continuous neighbors, have casinos.
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p>How do you know the existance of a casino in Palmer will negatively affect education in Ware, Warren, Holland, Brimfield and Wales? It’s not for me to dig, but rather for you to support your conclusion. No?
Casino workers often come from families where English is not the mother tongue. Their children as also ESL students. While a casino may give some bribery mitigation money to their town, not all their employees will live there. So now area towns have a higher population of service-intensive students, without any mitigation from the casino that’s bringing it in.
So really, the education argument against casinos is all about trying to keep those pesky, English-limited im’grants out? gimme a break.
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p>People go where there are jobs. Period. including immigrants with a less than passing command of English. (Actually, immigrants tend to go where there ARN’T jobs, too, just so long as it’s better than where they’re coming from- see Lawrence, MA). If there were suddenly hundreds of new jobs created between Worcester and Springfield in the field of your choice, high tech, manufacturing, whatever, immigrants would still flood to the area, as would opportunity-seekers of all backgrounds.
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p>How is it worse for the Commonwealth for the children of immigrants with limited English skills be educated in ESL classrooms in Warren or Palmer instead of Lawrence or Boston?
casino opposition isn’t about keeping esl students out, it is about insuring that there is a way to pay for their education. the concensus seems to be that under the casino plan, funds won’t be there to properly educate those kids.
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p>Ever heard anyone say Foxwoods hurt CT education? I haven’t. Seems to me that as long as the Town is at the table when the tax revenue pie is being divided, it can claim it’s share of property taxes for police, schools, etc.
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p>It simply makes no logical sense–to me anyway–to claim that casinos are bad for education in the neighboring towns.
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p>For God’s sake, just show me some facts. The bold statement was made that casinos are bad for education. Why does someone, anyone or even the consensus believe that to be true? I could just as easily say that a Democrat majority on the Town of Palmer Counsel is bad for education.
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p>Facts? I don’t need no stinkin’ facts.
Middleborough’s whitewash impact (PDF) report even admitted that it was a factor:
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p>A factor? That’s the best opposition against casinos? Casinos are a “factor” in the local education. Hell, what isn’t a factor in education.
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p>Nonetheless, good link. Here’s some interesting quotes from that report:
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p>So, it looks like there are no significant effects on the Middleborough nor unusual enrollment issues in Ledyard, we gotta watch out for those ELLs. Those English Language Learners could ruin our lily white school.
…why aren’t you advocating that the leg pass the Life Sciences bill? The casino jobs you’re advocating for will mostly be low-wage service jobs…but the Life Science project will great high paying tech jobs that will generate more tax revenues and stimualte the ecomoncy better.
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p>Given that both casino’s and biotech will both result in building constructions–both will help the local unions.
There are already tons of biotech companies here, soaking up federal and state money. We don’t need to give them a Billion dollars, they’ll do fine. We need to make sure we protect the whole diversity of industries here, and our infrastructure, not push everything aside for one industry. We’ve already protected and legalized SCNT for them here, they should be able to raise their own money now.
Honestly, not everyone is qualified for for a job at a biotech company. There is a running undercurrent on this site that “service jobs” = bad, dirty jobs. It’s really pretty elitist. People on here seem not to recognize the validity or honor in a job unless it’s high paying and requires a bachelor’s degree.
—>Deval’s recent State of the State, IIRC, gave a figure of 6 or 7 non-scientist jobs for every scientist job. As a former biotech employee, I think that may be on the conservative side. Often jobs can be associates degree/certificate program stuff at large scale biotech locations, or less than that with experience. Add in admin to janitorial to shipping (more where the 7:1 number comes in) and the initiative becomes a lot less elitist than you think at first glance.
I’m not against the biotech initiative. In fact, I think its probably a good idea. I don’t think it’s necessarily and either or between the casino proposal and the biotech initiative. I think both are part of a larger job creation plan.
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p>I was commenting on the drum beat of “casino jobs are bad jobs” that you see on this site. Any jobs plan should address jobs for people at every level of the socio-economic scale and for all levels of education.
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p>So,… uh,… passing the casino bill will pay your monthly mortage, guarantee job security and wha? As referenced above there is plenty of data on BMG to intelligently refute the jobs claims, the infrastructure repairs claims, and just about every other claim that casinos will be a net positive for the state.
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p>Let’s stick a fork in the bill before casinos stick a fork in us.
20,000 permanent private sector jobs? Show me some numbers, because frankly, I don’t believe it. While you’re at it, I’d love to see the annual wage distribution for those jobs. How many bring in over $20k? $30k? $40k?
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p>Speaking of “selfish,” while you’re at it, how much will the casinos drag on social services? Additional law enforcement? Additional local and state wide strain on transport? You know, that thing that we all pay toward?
He’s only writing what his bosses told him to write.
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p>Many of those 20,000 jobs will undoubtedly be in the casino lobbying sector.
smelled like a plant to me, too.
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p>When the casino promoters talk about 20,000 jobs then break it down to 3,000 per site (Mohegan Sun presentation to Palmer citizens January 23, 2008) I get confused, I thought 3,000 X 3 = 9,000?
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p>Then there’s the construction projection of 30,000 that has been refuted widely. Yet the Governor still gets away with a massive disinformation campaign aided and abetted by the MSM.
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p>Maybe, the Gaming Authority patronage haven is where the real jobs numbers will be generated. But shucks, that wouldn’t be the private sector, now would it?
why, because the poster only created an account a few days before posting, and has posted on casinos only?
I had a gut feeling.
a stiff bromide!
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p>…..to get our Democrat dominated legislature to get off its hands and pass some meaningful reforms. (Since electing a Governor of the same party hasn’t worked as well as expected). Seriously I am no fan of casinos but I am equally no fan of our Commonwealth government, Of the Beacon Hill insiders, by the Beacon Hill insiders, for the Beacon Hill insiders. Institutions that stymied would do well to perish from the earth. (Apologies to Mr. Lincoln.) It is their general obstructionism to bite the hand (from which some of them feed) which has lead to this ill advised casino proposal as an alternative to real sustainable economic reform. Like (and I hate to say it) Mitt’s push for Smart Growth (supported by the zoning reform act repeatedly held up by the Beacon Hill power brokers) and Mitt’s Office of Commonwealth Development ( needed work but still not a bad idea), which Deval eliminated even though he touted it as a good Republican idea early in his campaign as an example of how “together we can” worked
As a side note is there a edit function for comments??
I will spare everyone from flogging the same dead horse for the upteenth time, BUT, casino’s are not only NOT the solution, but they will ultimately exacerbate the problem. It’s like opening up opium dens with meters on the doors.
Ya, you make money, but what comes stumbling out the door.
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p>How about if the surrounding states add casino’s as well. The law of diminishing returns and unintended consequence will then be manifest. We will have huge white elephants.
Natural habitat destroyed forever and sveral Atlantic City’s in rural Massachusetts acting as magnets for crime.
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p>Spare me the propoganda. Massachusetts needs high tech and manufacturing jobs. Unfortunately Bill Clinton and George Bush( Both of them) sent them overseas. USA must do something, (protectionism may be the answer) for our economy before we are staring at another Great depression.
Rebates are NOT the answer. American industry must be rekindeled.
Somehow giving the genetics industry a $1 Billion guarantee, and making our taxpayers pay for it in a few years (plus interest) is also the only savior we can think of. I’m not sure which is more of a gamble, or which is more blind to ethics.
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p>I agree with you about protectionism, we need incentives to bring medium and low tech manufacturing and farming and textiles back, to have a local, sustainable economy.
you have already agreed that we need to repeal the 1913 laws so as to stimulate the state’s wedding and tourism industries! that would be a great boon to numerous small businesses, and perhaps even encourage the creation of new ones.
There’s not much “value added” in weddings and tourism, they’re really quite decadent wastes of money. But as long as we have a monopoly, it’d be a temporary cash cow for us, and speed up the marriage debate towards resolution. But not long term. Long term I think weddings should be local and tourism should be discouraged or taxed. We need needed industries, real goods and services of true value rather than frivolousness.
I rarely agree with you, if I recall we are on total opposite sides of everything. But
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p>Yes, yes, yes! I disagree with total protectionism…I think we could do well with fair trade laws, that rewards other countries with free trade for good behavior, the kind that really WILL lift all boats and eventually get those poorer countries more on a par with us, and allow us all to compete FAIRly, but still…the corporate-written free trade laws, which the neoliberals capitulated to after going after corporate donors in order to fight the tide of Republicans who were so good at it…THAT is the true problem with the shrinking middle class in this country and the loss of good jobs.
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p>The jobs created by casinos are either temporary or mostly service sector and poorly paying. So poorly paying that CT casinos import immigrant workers so they don’t have to pay a middle class salary for them.
The original post was truly assinine. Forgive me but my moral attitudes are important. I do not believe we should tax poor people, I do not believe we should create more crime, more prostitution, and more law breaking. I do not believe we should put small businesses out of business.
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p>I also know that the revenues will not be that great, the amount of jobs very paltry like a few thousand at best, the infrastructure costs enormous, the transaction costs enormous, and the net gains in terms of taxes and revenue negated by the costs of increased crime and the loss of small businesses to these resorts. Plus I find it very disconcerting that the government is proping up private businesses especially considering that these casinoes could still fail and all those initial investments will have been for naught.
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p>Lets build wind farms, lets build an alternative energy sector, lets improve our state education system for the information economy, lets, I dont know, follow the platform of the Governor we actually elected not this gambling idiot he has morphed into.
That’s another point that is missed. If there’s going to be such fallout (new addicted persons who might not otherwise have been that WE as a state have to deal with, pay for) why should the government be selling this idea to us as a revenue source that will cause that pain for so many?
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p>It’s bad enough we as a state are addicted to the lottery revenues. You could argue pretty quickly that it’s selling false hope to the poorest among us and therefore a regressive tax. We’re never going to get rid of the lottery now that we have it because of that addiction on revenues…so is it really moral to go further down that path?
I oppose the casinos but I think this last part of your argument can end up shooting yourself in the foot.
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p>I’m a big fan of alternative energy, biotech, and the information economy but we have no guarantees that any of those will succeed either. In fact, if you subsitute those three items in place of “casinos” in your quote above you would have a legitimate statement.
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p>All of those are private businesses and they could still fail after the state invests money in them and that money will have been for naught.
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p>Which is why Raytheon, Fidelity, Casinos, Life Science, Solar energy or a pro-sport stadium deal are just bad gambles by politicians who have no expertise to bet the taxpayers money on the next best idea.
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p>It’s our money and their ego. Rolling the dice and boasting if there’s a win or ignoring the losses.
I’m starting to come around to that conclusion myself but I’m not ready to give up my belief that the government should be investing in businesses that both hold promise for future returns and run little-to-no risk of doing harm.
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p>Solar, alt-energy, etc. seem like, please pardon the pun, winning bets to me. I invest my money in those markets because I believe they’ll help build my personal account. I believe the same would hold true for the state. They certainly meet the second standard with a very reasonable expectation that they will do no harm. The same cannot be said of casinos.
SolarGreen. The first of the Deval Patrick economic bets. You may think it’s a winning bet. I do not. Who’s right (you or me) is unpredictable with an efficient market, IMHO.
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p>So, given an efficient market where the sector/company may succeed or not, is it best to allow the government to take my taxes and place the bet, or leave the taxes with the taxpayer and allow me, or you, to decide–you placing your bet, and me placing mine.
and the same questions I’m asking myself. Like I said, I’m starting to lean your way.
Okay, so there’s a healthy disagreement about whether destination casinos will help the state’s economy. You’re certainly entitled to adopt an attitude that they will not, but since Massachusetts’ economy is doing so well, perhaps someone might venture a TANGIBLE, REALISTIC strategy to revitalizing our state economy.
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p>And I don’t mean a laundry list of wishful thinking that seems to permeate every anti-casino person’s idea of an alternative to three destination casinos. Some specifics, please? Reasonable, doable, specifics!
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p>Bosley’s tax-giveaway to Raytheon and Fidelity? Yeah, sure, that worked real well. It’s only every other month or so that Fideily announces its trimming jobs in Massachusetts and moving them to southern states. Nice job, Dan.
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p>And Bosley’s energy dereg initiative, promising it’d create competition and lower our energy bills? Oh yeah, that worked real well too. Never mind that the bigger companies bought up the smaller ones and then raised our electric rates through the roof. Another great economic piece of work by Dan.
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p>So now we’ve got a life sciences bill that Bosley wants to “tweak?” Please, don’t let him go anywhere near that legislation or, once again, we’ll see a bill emerge that helps the fat cat big businesses and screws the working stiff.
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p>I don’t care that the League of Women Voters and Bosley are against the governor’s casini bill. Frankly, that encourages me to believe that the legislation must be pretty substantive.
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p>By the way, all that casino-related crime and prostitution that the moralists spout. My Catholic grandmother and her church friends take a charter bus to Foxwoods once-a-month to play high stakes bingo. She’s 78 years old. She laughs — as do all in her casino-motoring religious group — about all the scare tactics adopted by the anti-casino crowd.
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p>She told me they feel much safer inside Foxwoods than they do at the local mall. But, she said, if Massachusetts doesn’t okay casinos, she and her friends will continue to visiting Foxwoods once a month — as do thousands of other groups across the commonwealth.
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p>And, as she says about the casino critics, “I’m too old to have someone who doesn’t know anything about life tell me how to live mine.”
that’s the revamped line Deval uses about his blessed deceased mother.
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p>We’ve all heard it, snore.
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p>Those d-mn “League of Women Voters”. There’s nothin’ that ticks me off more than kindly elderly women making coffee and bringing danishes to an event where I can hear candidates speak. Meddling biddies, all.
Crazy huh?
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p>You know, objectively (seriously) every time I encounter a LoWV event or discussion sponsored by them I really am impressed. Well organized and thoughtful comes to mind. I have never seen them appear dishonest or disenfranchising.
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p>If they’ve seen fit to enshrine a position into their platform, a rare occurrence, I think it, at the least, deserves a serious second look. This shill makes it sound like they are the least honest people around…experience over the years really does say else wise to anyone paying attention.
since when do the lwv et al. take time to oppose italian politicians?
Huh? Since when did rational economic assessments of the indirect costs of casinos become “selfish and moralistic?”
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p>Your “figures” and your false outrage are all too transparent.
How about citizens manifest total distain for state government because state government consistently exhibits the promotion of Satan inspired principles. For what, jobs? Jobs that increase social degradation.
What, cooks, hotel housekeepers, Guido mafia types, fascist thug cops with internet Homeboy Security degrees bought online?
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p>Exodus from mAssachusetts plan just moved ahead full.
Life sciences bill? Fine. Give the big biz community a tax giveaway and tax concessions to do the R&D its already supposed to be doing to remain competitive? But let’s pay them public tax dollars to do that work anyway.
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p>Why bother spending the commonwealth’s tax dollars on generating a more diverse economy — not just resort casinos, but an emerging wind power sector, or perhaps a desalinization industry sector. That’s be foolish now, wouldn’t it?
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p>Gee, all that salt water and wind buffeting our coast. The world’s premier institute of technology in our backyard. Surely there’s no reason why Bosley should spend any time in his position as econ dev chair in the House to stoke some real innovative environmentally beneficial economic legislation — legislation that reduces our dependency on fossil fuels, that is clean and ecologically rewarding, that helps further diversify our economy.
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p>Nah, just keep giving tax cuts to the electric industries and keep deregulating their operations so that they can buy up smaller electric companies, eliminate competition, and raise our electric rates through the roof.
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p>Keep giving tax concessions to the Fidelity’s of the world so that they can cut operations in the Bay State and move operations and jobs to other states.
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p>Resort casinos? Wind power? Desalinization technology? Diversify our economy so that we have a more recession-proof economy? Nah, that’s no way to get re-elected. Better we give the fat cat biz community the legislation necessary to continue to feed off the public trough, and they’ll keep donating to our campaign committees.
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p>That’s Bosleynomics!