While Googling for what Deval has to say on the slot machine issue, I stumbled upon this very blog, and for now that is sufficient inspiration to get a post or two out of me.

I barely remember what I had to say on slot machines before, but since my last post on the issue I have ranted many times in person, and the internet could use another rant. So without further ado:


Folks in Boston City Government all know Bob McLennan, Boston Imbecile For DiMasi's Seat, and hopefully they are the only ones. For everyone else, Bob comes around every few days to hand out what I suppose is campaign literature, but is more accurately a few paragraphs of handwritten and then photocopied nonsense about the evils of Sal DiMasi and his minions. He complains that DiMasi is in cahoots with Governor Romney, despite claiming to be a "Boston Republican For DiMasi's Seat," but despite these numerous oddities of character, I am going to attack Bob on policy. That's just how I roll.

And for the record, Bob mearly serves as an example of an opinion that stretches well beyond his silly little mind. The purpose of this post is to discuss the policy, though, so I will leave the legitimate candidates out of it.

The issue is actually fairly simple. Massachusetts race tracks are in trouble, and in an effort to save track jobs, many politicians and track owners would like to legalize slot machines at these sites. The bonus--and, really, the crux of the debate--is that this would mean hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue that would go to local governments.

Thanks to the good Democratic people of Massachusetts, who elected a vast majority of Democrats to the State House, the measure failed, and Bob is pretty livid about it. He argues--with debatable persuasiveness--that DiMasi's House is cruelly keeping the added revenue from cities and towns that need it. I cannot and would not argue with him that cities and towns need every penny they can get, and I choose not to argue that the slots would bring in millions upon millions. I am happy to grant that premise, because even with it Bob has no ground to stand on. None at all.

It takes a certain amount of ignorance to not see the major flaw of this plan: this money is already ours. Advocates of the machines seem to think that say no to slots is like declining free money. But this money is far from free.

Christy Mihos--in a staff meeting over donuts that some NU students sat in on--told the students that they did not look like the slot machine type. I am not sure why he said this, but what he meant is that those who use the slots are usually two things: they are poor and they are elderly. This money is not free, we are taking it from exactly those we seek to help.

This is what Bob is missing, that slot machine revenue is a tax; a regressive and addictive tax. He is right that the State needs to send more money to its cities, but he is simply not intelligent enough to notice it is a tax.

The advocates at the top do realize this, of course. They realize that the Commonwealth needs every dollar they can get, but they ran on keeping taxes low. So while state income tax rates fall, local property taxes rise, the State House tries to find politically palatable ways to slow this down. Sometimes you just have to cash in political capital and hope people understand.

Here is what I would do if I was the Governor/Speaker/Senate President: I would stop pretending that we can make Massachusetts a better state for free. We are going to make public education first rate for kids in Hingham AND Roxbury, but it is going to cost money. We are going to make sure that everyone has sufficient health issurance in Massachusetts, but it is going to cost money. We are going to make the streets of Boston and Springfield and Brockton and Lowell safe, but that's going to cost money too. We can and will do these things, and it will be worth every penny.

We have to trust people to understand that investing in Massachusetts now will be worth it.