[Northampton-GP] Fw: PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATOR! Stop casino gambling in MA before it starts!

[Jackie J Jaffe]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities" <info at masschc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 12:07 PM
Subject: PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATOR! Stop casino gambling in MA before it
starts!


> Apologies for any duplication.
> Please forward broadly.
> -----------------------------
> Friends of health, justice and democracy,
>
> With so many folks struggling with budget cuts or hard at work for
deserving
> candidates, this is a difficult time to mobilize against yet another
threat
> to our communities. Yet if this measure passes, it will deliver a victory
> to the powerful gaming industry lobbyists which will further undermine
> public health, the economy and fairness in the Commonwealth. And once
> established, the casino industry will be virtually impossible to roll
back.
> That's why I'm writing to ask you to take a moment right now to call your
> state Senator and urge him/her to oppose the casino gambling amendment to
> S2124.
>
> If passed, this amendment would pave the way for casino gambling and slot
> machines in Massachusetts. It is the latest in a series of proposed budget
> "remedies" that do favors for powerful interests on Beacon Hill while
> increasing what amount to regressive, hidden taxes on working people and
> seniors. In order to produce the 400 million dollars in anticipated
gambling
> revenues, people in Massachusetts will have to lose a devastating 2
billion
> worth of their hard earned dollars.
>
> In addition, ordinary people across the Commonwealth stand to lose big
time
> from the harmful impacts of casino gambling identified by a large body of
> research. These impacts include:
>
> - Net costs that outstrip revenues by 3:1 due to increased crime, social
and
> family dysfunction, court and other costs.
>
> - Harm to the economy from jobs lost as discretionary money is drained by
> the gambling industry.
>
> - Social costs - including bankruptcies, divorce, domestic violence, child
> abuse, drug abuse, work absenteeism and lost productivity - that have been
> found to double within a 50 mile radius of casinos.
>
> - Doubling and tripling of pathological gambling rates.
>
> Please call your Senator ASAP, and urge him/her to vote NO on the casino
> gambling amendment to the economic development package, S2124. Please call
> as soon as you can, because the vote is scheduled to take place some time
> this week.
>
> You can call your Senator at 617-722-2000. If you don't know the name of
> your Senator, go to www.wheredoivotema.com or call 1-800-462-VOTE.
>
> For more on this subject, see the article on casino gambling below, or go
to
> http://www.masschc.org.
>
> Thanks for speaking up for justice and health in the Commonwealth!
>
> Upward,
> Jill
>
> Jill Stein MD
> Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities
> www.masschc.org
> 781-674-2422
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
> OP ED FROM MCHC
> Expanded Gambling: Think Twice Before Placing Your Bet
>
> by John Andrews, MCHC
>
> The leadership on Beacon Hill is looking for more revenue, and expanded
> gambling is rearing its ugly head again.
>
> Sen. Michael Morrissey (D-Quincy) has proposed a new gaming commission
> that would take bids on several sites across the state for development
> of large-scale casinos.  And Senate President Robert Travaglini (D-East
> Boston) has suggested that installing slot machines at race tracks could
> produce revenue to preserve certain health care programs "near and dear"
> to the Senate. In the next few days, an attempt will be made to attach
> a gambling amendment to an economic stimulus bill.
>
> So what's wrong with seeking badly needed revenues through expanded
> gambling? Plenty, say those who have studied the effects of gambling in
> other states.
>
> First, there are the ruined lives and destroyed families that would
> result from an increase in problem gamblers.  Studies have found that
> problem gamblers increase over 200% within 50 miles of a new casino.
> About 5% of people gamble to excess when gambling becomes easily
> available.  The consequences of problem gambling are severe for the
> gamblers and their families. It produces an increase in divorces,
> bankruptcies, insurance fraud, stealing from employers, child
> abandonment,  and suicides. In Deadwood South Dakota, after two years
> of casino gambling, child abuse cases increased 42%.  Domestic violence
> and assaults increased 80%.
>
> Exploiting problem gamblers is not an afterthought of the industry - it
> is an integral part of their strategy for profit.  It is estimated that
> 27% to 55% of casino revenues come from pathological and problem
> gamblers.
>
> Secondly, gambling is an unfair way to raise revenues because its burden
> falls heavily on people in the lower part of the income spectrum.  A
> recent study indicated that the rate of pathological or problem gambling
> among the top fifth of the socioeconomic ladder was 1.6 percent; while
> in the lowest fifth, it was 5.3 percent. For whatever reason, lower
> income people are more likely to get hooked by the quarter-at-a-time
> lure of slot machines.
>
> Thirdly - and this is a shocker - the net cost of gambling to a state
> can easily exceed the revenues it generates. Economist John Kindt of
> the University of Illinois has calculated that for every $1 that state
> receives in gambling revenues, it spends at least $3 in increased
> criminal justice, social welfare and other costs. People who never lose
> a dime in slot machines wind up paying for the consequences of problem
> gambling.
>
> Would gambling create jobs? Obviously, it would create jobs in the
> gambling industry. But it will also destroy jobs. When residents drop
> hundreds of millions of dollars into the slot machines, that money is
> taken out of the rest of the state economy. And it results in layoffs
> and unemployment in businesses not associated with the casinos.
> Amazingly, the gambling proposals in the Massachusetts legislature have
> never been studied to find out how many jobs they will destroy.
>
> Expanded gambling may be a bad idea, but it should come as no surprise
> that so many legislators like it. During this year's budget crisis
> legislators refused to repeal the billion-dollar tax breaks they had
> given to corporations and the wealthy, but moved quickly to impose over
$600
> million in fee hikes on ordinary citizens.  Expanded gambling would be
just
> another in a series of moves to do favors for politically-connected
> corporate interests while extracting more money from ordinary people - a
> quarter at a time.
>
> Fortunately, the gambling proposals are being questioned by concerned
> citizens and several principled legislators. In addition to the issues
> cited above, human service organizations are asking how they can be
> expected to deal with increases in problem gamblers after absorbing the
> brutal budget cuts of the last two years. Massachusetts Audubon Society
> is warning that casino development can aggravate a host of
> environmental problems, especially if they evade environmental
> safeguards by building on Native American land. And the Grey2K
> organization is asking why legislators continue to prop up the greyhound
> racing industry that about half the voters want to see phased out.
>
> In the end, it may boil down to a question of what type of society we
> want to live in. As Jill Stein, President of the Massachusetts
> Coalition for Healthy Communities  observes "We should fully support
raising
> revenues to maintain vital services. But necessary revenues should be
> raised through fair taxes that fall mostly on the wealthiest taxpayers who
> are not now paying their fair share. Slot machines and casino gambling are
> attempts to extract money from lower income people who are already paying
a
> higher percentage of their income in fees and taxes than the wealthy.
> Gambling will undermine the health of our communities and in the final
> analysis will be a drain on the economy.  More gambling is not an option
> that should be on the table if we care about the world we are creating for
> our children."