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Pro-gambling
lobbyists across the country cannot believe their
good fortune. The worst budgetary outlook in decades
has left plenty of desperate state governments once
again vulnerable to being snookered by the gambling
lobby's alluring "something-for-nothing"
sales pitch, the fiscal equivalent of a comped
buffet. States should know better by now. Opposing
an ill-advised expansion of legalized gambling will
be a true test of leadership for governors and state
legislators nationwide.
States
embraced gambling as a fiscal panacea during the
last economic slowdown, in the early 1990's. Video
poker machines (the industry's crack cocaine) and
riverboat casinos spread into such improbable venues
as Iowa and South Carolina.
It
is painfully clear that not every state, and indeed
not every county, can sustain its own Las Vegas.
People do not fly across the country to gamble in
South Dakota saloons, and there is no long-term
economic payoff in enticing locals to ante up. The
all-too-distressing reality created by gambling's
spread is more crime, more addiction and more local
businesses being cannibalized.
In
recent years, the drive to expand legalized gambling
has lost its momentum. Flusher economic times helped
state governments acknowledge that gambling's social
costs outweighed whatever windfall could be had in
tax revenue. In 1999 the Congressionally appointed
National Gambling Impact Study Commission called for
a moratorium on the spread of gambling.
Now
budget deficits are back, and so are the
pro-gambling lobbyists. From California to Florida
and Massachusetts, states are eyeing an expansion of
legalized gambling. The gleeful lobbyists portray
the issue as a choice between voluntary and
involuntary taxes. What they don't add is that this
so-called voluntary tax is regressive and saddles
communities with unacceptably high social costs.
The
case made for expanding gambling is usually a
disingenuous one. It's all about saving venerable
horse tracks (by bringing in slot machines),
enhancing an existing lottery or helping Indian
nations. An army of Washington lobbyists and outside
casino operators eager to join with real and
imagined tribes has worked hard to transform laws
allowing gambling on reservations into a regulatory
Trojan horse stuffed with slot machines.
Among
the ensuing absurdities: Indian-owned
off-reservation casinos, like the glitzy one the
Seneca Nation opened on New Year's Eve in Niagara
Falls, N.Y. Casinos already operate on the Canadian
side of the falls.
One
rationale for allowing casino gambling in New York
State, as in most places, is a rather defensive
"If we don't take the wagers, other states
will." Courageous leaders must resist this
destructive race to the bottom.
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