Should the State Bet on Casinos, Part 2, by Chris Trakas

In my previous, post, I established the case for permitting casinos in the Commonwealth. At this point, the question should be how to expand gaming here in a way that will benefit the state and its workers and taxpayers and while recognizing the unique issues and potential problems. The proposal put forth by the Governor's Gambling Study Group is a step in the right direction in the sense that it starts us down the path toward expanded gambling. It recognizes the reality of the potential for significant revenue and what is going on in neighboring states. It also recognizes the potential problems and attempts to deal with them. I applaud the Study Group for that, but I also recommend altering the approach.

The plan should be altered to benefit Massachusetts workers and organizations. A plan similar to New York's using the racino (racing+casino) approach and at least one Massachusetts based tribal casino would be a better plan and would be more fair to long time Massachusetts workers and residents. The Massachusetts tracks have provided jobs, revenue, and enjoyment to residents for years. They also have been severely hurt by the Connecticut and Rhode Island casinos. They have been the force pushing expanded gaming for the last fifteen years so that they could offer another product along with their core product, which would also greatly benefit the state at the same time. They have kept this issue in the forefront and have advanced many of the arguments that have convinced a majority of the residents that we should take this next step.

As an example of the potential benefits to the state, they have offered to give it a very large percentage of the gaming revenues, much more than the current proposal calls for. The tracks are proposing to give 60% of the gaming profits, before expenses, to the state. They essentially will be paying a 60% tax rate on net income before expenses, by far the highest tax rate in the state. Then they will pay to run the operations out of the remaining 40% with at least a quarter of that going to help support the racing and breeding industries that have been so severely hurt by the Connecticut and Rhode Island casinos. The tracks want an opportunity to help their workers and the state at the same time. Their hope is to get more people visiting their facilities with an expanded product offering and hopefully to see their racing handles increase. The vast majority of the gaming profits will go to the state. The racino approach will quickly infuse revenue to the state because the facilities are already here. Further, it helps preserve industries that employ many thousands of people and while providing entertainment to thousands more. A study of the racinos in New York, Pennsylvania, Maine, West Virginia, and Delaware would show that it is a successful and beneficial way to go.

Should the State Bet on Casinos? Part 1 - By Chris Trakas

This opinion piece is part 1 in a series.

I am a member of the Milton Republican Town Committee. The issues of expanded gaming and casinos have become major news items in the past couple of months. I am a proponent of some type of expansion of gambling for various reasons. First and foremost, it is already here but the state gets no benefit from it. It is not like "the old days" when it was confined to Las Vegas and then to Atlantic City. Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun, and Twin Rivers are major casinos whose number one customer base is people from Massachusetts. Twin Rivers is located less than ten miles from the Massachusetts border and the Connecticut casinos are less than a 90 minute drive from a majority of the population of the state. Massachusetts residents are providing hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island through those casinos, money that should be staying here. We essentially have casinos in Massachusetts already, they just happen to be a short distance over the border and we get no monetary benefit from them.

There is much talk about the "social costs" of casinos. If there are social costs, they are already being felt. The above mentioned casinos are easy to reach by car. There are hundreds of extremely low priced bus trips carrying customers to them. It is important to help people who have problems with gambling, but that does not mean that everyone else should be excluded from participating and enjoying themselves. Any discussion of social costs should also include the social costs of not having expanded gambling in Massachusetts and the lost jobs in this state. Consider the money that has left the state and is not spent here on local projects and on improving the economy. Isn't it a social cost to constantly have Proposition 2.5 overrides that might be unnecessary if we were able to recoup some of the gambling revenue? Consider what has happened to the incomes of the hard working people at the state's racetracks. Those facilities have been greatly hurt by the Connecticut casinos. These people are long time, hard working Massachusetts residents. Is that not a social cost? I believe that the greater social cost is in not tapping in to the expanded gambling market.

There is also the idea of people enjoying themselves. People go to the casinos because they like it, it gives them something enjoyable to do, and there are social and nightlife opportunities that are not available here.

This state has been surrounded by states that have taken advantage of the opportunities to expand their gaming operations. These states certainly aren't being run by naive people who are chasing some sort of pie in the sky undertaking. Connecticut and Rhode Island are major gambling states. New York has tribal casinos and has also added gaming to the state's racetracks to create casinos. New Hampshire has already added poker to its racetracks and is seriously considering a major casino at the Rockingham track, which is about a mile over the Massachusetts border. Maine has expanded into casinos. A little further away, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Delaware have taken the casino route as well. All of these states have reaped billions of dollars of revenues over the years and are generally happy with the results. The facilities are heavily regulated, safe for their employees and customers and profitable for the states.

Up Next, Part 2: The Plan for Massachusetts.

All Politics is Local - 03/10/08

Yes, Tip O'Neill said it, but it applies equally well to Republican Party politics in Milton. Last night, the Milton Republican Town Committee met at Town Hall to welcome its newly elected members, set an agenda for the coming year and hear from two local candidates.

New Members - As you may know, the members of the committee are elected by the citizen/party members of Milton and this past election placed 25 members on the committee. New and returning members gathered together last night to meet one another and remark on the vast breadth of experience. Some members were meeting for the first time and others had been active for over 40 years. Talk about your greatest generation.

Agenda - But its more than just a meet and greet...these members want to help reestablish the GOP here in town and across the Commonwealth, so the first order of business is setting goals. Ours are simple:
1) Give citizens a clear choice between liberal democratic politicians and their policies and the traditional conservative principles that have helped our country grow and prosper for over 200 years.
2) Use that clear choice to convince conservative leaning voters who have chosen to register as independents to renew their registration in the Republican Party.
3) Harness the strength of an active and committed voter base to nominate and elect Republicans to local office so they can implement the policies in which we believe.

Candidates - Funny you should mention it but two happened to show up last night. Our own Chris Huban presented himself as a candidate for a fourth term as member of our School Committee and Tom Gorman presented a compelling case for his election as Norfolk County Commissioner. Chris's case is strong. During his tenure, he helped replace the entire school system's physical plant for the same cost that surrounding towns are spending on a single High School. He helped reverse a downward trend in student achievement by meeting Advanced Yearly Progress (AYP) metrics. And he helped promote two long time Milton teachers and residents into the leadership positions of Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent.

And Tom Gorman is an unusual candidate in that he wants you to vote for him now so that you never have to vote for him again. His proposal is to save the 28 towns in Norfolk County $ millions annually by transferring responsibility for county services to the state agencies that already perform overlapping services and then abolish the county government entirely. Nine other MA counties have already done the same with no disruption in services. Now that's a bi-partisan proposal anyone can support! Check out Tom's newly designed web site (available April 1) by clicking on the link to the right of this post.

See you on April 28 for our next meeting.