Monday, March 27, 2006
April fools
State gambling regulators will begin public hearings next Wednesday on where to place 10,000 slot machines at 14 venues, including racetracks and freestanding locations.Their decisions could make Pennsylvania one of the biggest slot-machine states in the country. Slots could be up and running at the racetracks as early as the fall.
Already the big gambling companies are drooling to sucker state residents out of their quarters, silver dollars and nickels, despite a state tax of 52 cents on every dollar the slots parlors earn.
"We think there's tremendous market potential," said Jan Jones, a senior vice president for Las Vegas-based Harrah's Entertainment, which is involved with two separate license applications. "For people that may like to gamble but don't like to go to Atlantic City, there's not a lot of product available in the East."
He's not the only one salivating. Most of the new tax revenue raised by the slot machines - estimated at $1 billion - is supposed to go to lower property taxes levied by 501 school districts across the state.
That is, if the Legislature can come up with a way to spend it that lawmakers and the school districts can live with.
Senators on a committee negotiating a compromise bill on residential property-tax cuts persuaded their House counterparts Monday to schedule a vote next Monday on a plan that closely resembles a solution favored by the Senate.
That means in one week's time, the logjam on differing plans on how to spend the largesse will have to end.
The House has supported expanding property-tax cuts by raising state sales and income taxes, but the Senate has resisted the idea.
Meanwhile, fewer than 100 of the school districts opted in for tax cuts because the program also limited their ability to raise property taxes in the future.
Too bad both the hearings and the Legislature's vote aren't being held on Saturday, April 1.
For how foolish is it to turn residents into slot machine junkies and hook the state on gambling revenue for a short-lived reprieve on property taxes that benefits nobody but the teachers' unions at their next contract negotiations?
| 
RSS Feed | 
This Week's Rants | The Daily Rant Archives
The Daily Rant by Dave Ralis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
The Daily Rant by Dave Ralis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
