Pubdate: Sat, 02 Apr 2011
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2011 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Danny Westneat

A BAD BET: STATE FUNDS FROM SIN

Lawmakers in Olympia have been jonesing for money lately. So this 
spring they have come up with three big schemes for how to raise some 
fresh cash. The three ideas are: drugs, booze and gambling. Kind of 
gives new meaning to the phrase "the wages of sin."

"Are you guys trying to be the new Sin City or something?"

On the line from Vegas is Billy Gamble, aka William Thompson, aka the 
Scholar of Sin. He teaches for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, 
and he writes on such topics as vice, gaming and how economics is 
trumping values in politics these days.

So I figured he'd be perfect to ask about our state Legislature.

Lawmakers in Olympia have been jonesing for money lately. So this 
spring they have come up with three big schemes for how to raise some 
fresh cash.

The three ideas are: drugs, booze and gambling.

Kind of gives new meaning to the phrase "the wages of sin."

There's the proposal to legalize pot and sell it from the state 
liquor stores. There's the idea to open the state to private liquor 
sales. And last week, lawmakers from both parties introduced a bill 
to bring into the state as many as 8,000 slot machines.

All feature the lure of hundreds of millions of dollars in new 
revenue for a state budget that needs a fix.

And if that doesn't work, might as well have some fun, right?

What does it say about our Legislature that this is what they've come 
up with, I asked Thompson.

"That they're desperate?" he joked.

Seriously, this is how it's going all over, he says. Politicians in 
countless states are being cut off by the feds and feel they have 
exhausted all other sources of money -- politically acceptable ones, 
anyway. There's a sense that general taxes can't be raised and 
too-deep spending cuts may hurt the state, so politicians feel as 
hemmed in as a gambler on a losing streak.

"The economic equation is overwhelming," Thompson says. "So they're 
casting about, and the standard objections against the sins are being 
set aside because of the sheer need for money."

Or at least the chimera of money. I favor legalizing pot -- mostly 
because it's such a waste of public resources keeping it illegal -- 
but the idea of installing the state as the approved dope dealer is a 
huge stretch in the other direction.

"Legalize pot for the personal freedom, not for the money," Thompson 
says (and I agree).

Likewise, bringing slot machines into the state might help some 
cardrooms keep pace with the big Indian casinos (which don't pay 
state taxes). But it might not do all that much for the state, Thompson says.

The state's take of the slots likely would be shifted from other 
parts of the local economy, not from the Indian casinos, he says. The 
retiree playing the slots on Aurora twice a week is more likely to 
have spent that money at Wal-Mart, is how Thompson put it. It's 
different in Vegas, where gambling draws out-of-state or even 
international tourists.

"You'd mostly be hitting up your own seniors, your unemployed, the 
people with welfare checks, in order to balance the budget," he said.

Plus, once states go all in with a sin, they tend to become pushers of it.

"You have to promote the sin once you start taxing it," he said. "It 
will be 'save a school, play a slot machine.' "

In fact, the slot-machine bill, House Bill 2044, does earmark 50 
percent of the slots revenues to K-12 education.

Is this what we're reduced to? People toking, drinking and gambling 
are fine, as far as I'm concerned. And I don't blame the politicians 
for getting creative -- they are desperate, after all. But there's 
got to be a more dependable, broad-based way to pay for the 
government we want. Counting on sin to prop up schools or health care 
is just another way of chasing a bad bet.

Speaking of which, guess which state is the most in the hole 
financially out of all 50? With a deficit, measured as a percentage 
of the yearly budget, that is more than twice as large as ours?

Nevada.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom