Governor Slots?
All those painful missteps of the early days - the $10,000 drapes, the Caddy, the caddie for his wife - are in the rearview mirror where they belong. But now, still in his first year, Deval L. Patrick is on the brink of a decision that will define his legacy: Will he be the governor who brings casinos to Massachusetts?
It will not be his push to turn Massachusetts into the Silicon Valley of life sciences or expanding kindergarten or curbing property tax increases as he promised so often during the campaign that he will be remembered for. He will be the governor who brought casino gambling to the Commonwealth. He will spend the next three years negotiating with the Legislature - my own bet is House Speaker Sal DiMasi stands up big on this one - and in the courts as the inevitable brawls break out between the Indians and the tracks and the big casino operators on one hand and the various parts of the state that all want a piece of the action.
No matter how he tries to dress it up, whether as a way to pay for education - the old slots for tots hustle - or to fix the roads, gambling remains a bad bet.
What we know beyond a doubt is gambling begets more gambling. The Massachusetts Lottery started as a single weekly drawing, went to two a week, added Megabucks, instant games, and Keno. Slots and all that goes with them will be no different.
Patrick must weigh the benefits of gambling versus its costs. Take jobs and taxes:
The National Gambling Impact Study Commission, created by Congress, spent two years investigating gambling as an economic generator. It found there are jobs, sometimes good jobs, but the benefits "were generally most pronounced within the immediate vicinity of the gambling facilities, while the social costs tended to be diffused throughout a broader geographic region."
"The central issue is whether the net increases in income and well-being are worth the acknowledged social costs for gambling. . . . The commission has concluded that it is currently impossible to obtain even a rough approximation of a true cost-benefit calculation concerning the economic impact of legalized gambling," the commission wrote in a balanced final report. One thing the 1999 commission could agree on was the need for a moratorium on expanded gambling. That obviously has not happened.
And tax relief? Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey have gone deep into the gambling business. What they also have in common is they all rank in the top 10 of states with the highest state and local tax burdens, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. Massachusetts ranks number 28.
Gambling is sold as a voluntary activity. Gambling is voluntary - except for the millions of compulsive gamblers - but what is not voluntary is the tax. Buying a book is voluntary, too, but the 5 percent sales tax is not. The difference with gambling is the tax is much higher and embedded in the price of the product. And the tax is overwhelmingly paid by those who can afford it least.
YouTube is a powerful tool. To quote Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, during a debate last October in Cleveland as Ohio voters were considering legalizing gambling: "The people have the right to go to the ballot box and determine what they want the quality of life to be in their own area. Now if someone were to come along and tell me they were going to put a casino in McLean, Va., where I live, I would probably work very, very hard against it. What's the old saying? NIMBY, not in my backyard. Now I may be in favor of gaming. I just don't want it located in a particular area."
And you, governor? What would you say to a casino in Milton, where you live?
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902.
