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BOSTON
- These are remarks I made on Feb. 7 in a workshop
on casinos at the New England Press Association
convention.
I
MEAN no offense to those who support casino
gambling, to members of recognized or unrecognized
Indian tribes who seek to use the Indian Gaming
Regulatory Act of 1988 to profit from casino
gambling, nor to those working for corporations
seeking to establish new casino franchises in New
England.
But
my position on casino gambling is unequivocal: It
does not create wealth; rather, it is nothing more
than a scheme for transferring wealth from the many
to the few. The public understands, and for the most
part accepts that it transfers wealth from the many
who play to the few who win. But those who are
inclined to favor casinos do not understand a deeper
problem: Casinos transfer wealth from the many local
businesses, cultural attractions, museums,
restaurants and family venues to the few, mostly
out-of-state interests that own and operate casinos.
Casinos
thus remove money from the productive economies of
many communities. But they cannot be defended on the
ground that they put money into the economies of
their host communities. In Atlantic City, they drove
out the middle class, and natives of southeastern
Connecticut report that the only reason cars stop in
the towns around Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun anymore is
to ask for directions.
It
may be debated whether casinos bring drugs,
prostitution, organized crime and political
corruption as their byproducts all of the time, most
of the time, some of the time or not necessarily any
of the time. I am willing to accept the possibility
that criminal activity isn't an inevitable byproduct
of casinos. But with the possible exception of Las
Vegas itself, which was empty desert before gambling
came, no community that has accepted casino gambling
that I know of is a better place to live and raise
children than it was before. If Massachusetts or
Rhode Island seriously entertains legalizing
casinos, I therefore insist on one small point:
that, in Massachusetts, the town must be Belmont,
and, in Rhode Island, it must be East Greenwich. For
Governors Mitt Romney and Don Carcieri are busy men
who, if they approve casino gambling, certainly
ought to have the chance to go "gaming"
without undue inconvenience!
Finally,
seriously, the cruelest hoax of casinos is on the
Indian. How easily Congress threw away the principle
of equal protection when it undertook to bestow
"Indian gaming" on Indians and the nation
with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act! The delusion
was that sacrificing a constitutional principle
would benefit Indians. But in the event, a few real
Indians and some spurious ones have gotten rich,
while most Indians continue to live as poorly as
they did 50 years ago, and shall 50 years from now
if we go on turning their potentially rich lands
into gambling ghettos.
The
cause of the Indian is as worthy as that of any
group seeking its rights, and worthier than most.
But without private property and genuine economic
opportunity, real (as opposed to contrived-for-
casinos) reservations are living hells that can best
be understood by black or white Americans as like
living one's lifetime knowing one's children are an
active case in the files of the Department of Social
Services; or of knowing one's legal residency is
subject to challenge by the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. Succinctly, the quality of
life on Indian reservations today is what happens
when the preamble to the Constitution, "We, the
People," gets turned on its head, and the power
to make or destroy is given over to government. I
therefore consider "Indian gaming" to be
the tragic, mendacious, despicable assurance that
the life of the average Indian will be no better in
2053 than it was in 1953.
Why,
then, do we even consider bringing casinos to other
New England states? The answer is simple: Government
wants the revenue. State and local tax collectors
would gladly pass up meals taxes and sales taxes
from real, economic-growth-producing enterprises if
they could get their hands on a guaranteed revenue
stream in exchange for agreeing to casinos. As to
legislators, they are positively apoplectic when
they see a revenue stream going to tax collectors in
other states.
Such
legislators, tax collectors and private casino
interests are not acting in the public interest. As
citizens, as journalists, as enlightened public
officials, we must be brave enough to oppose casinos
until the economic truth about them becomes
generally accepted or until too many casinos in
other states cause the revenue stream to the tax
collector to dry up.
David
A. Mittell Jr. is a member of The Journal's
editorial board.
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