It's not one I'm taking.
"Patrick vows speed as casino era begins; Says he’ll soon name panel leader; foes consider ballot initiative" November 23, 2011|By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff
Massachusetts joined a growing number of states turning to gambling for jobs and revenue yesterday, embracing Las Vegas-style casinos and concluding an emotional four-year legislative battle over the state’s moral and economic future.
At a State House ceremony, Governor Deval Patrick officially ushered in the casino era, signing a law authorizing a slots parlor and three full-scale gambling establishments in designated regions across the state.
Vowing to move swiftly toward making casinos a reality, he said he would shortly appoint the chairman of a new and powerful gambling commission that will make nearly every key decision about the state’s newest industry, including where gambling establishments will go and how they will be regulated. “Now, the work will turn to getting it right in the implementation,’’ Patrick said.
Depending on how long the commission takes to set up regulations and choose developers, the first slots parlor could be up and running in a year, while the first of three casinos could open in five years.
In other words, no immediate relief in sight at all.
Patrick’s signature ends a fight that reaches back generations, as political leaders had steadfastly resisted increasingly strong overtures from the gambling industry.
That's why Sal DiMasi was outed and dethroned. He was a one-man roadblock.
It also represents a profound cultural shift in a state founded on strict religious principles that have persisted in some laws and public attitudes.
Oh, is that why I am so vehemently opposed?
Since Patrick embraced casinos four years ago, the gambling debate has consumed Beacon Hill, generating millions of dollars in lobbying expenditures, thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, and untold hours of closed-door negotiations.
Patrick and fellow Democrats in the Legislature are hoping that gambling, while not as strong an industry as it was a decade ago, can reclaim enough business from neighboring states that already have casinos to employ thousands of people and enough revenue to fortify a smorgasbord of state services....
Opponents argue that gambling’s benefits will be erased by the costs of regulation, police, and social services needed to combat addiction, crime, and corruption. They also argue that the state’s reputation as a center of history and education will be forever altered....
Now let it ride, will ya?
On another front, casino opponents say they are likely to begin a drive to repeal the law by statewide ballot initiative, which could give some developers and financiers pause as they consider committing about $600 million in start-up costs.
I'll sign!!
Local opponents have begun efforts, as well, preparing for a requirement under the law that gives residents the right to vote for or against a casino in their community.
But for now, organized labor and others who see the potential for jobs are celebrating....
Lawmakers say they expect to collect at least $280 million in one-time licensing fees and about $300 million a year in taxes from casinos. The money has been carved up in the law to meet a variety of state needs and desires, which has helped broaden the political coalition favoring casinos.
Efforts to remake the state health care system, for example, will get about $50 million to $60 million from the licensing fees. Community colleges could get $44 million. A “manufacturing fund,’’ with no defined purpose, could get $34 million.
Yup, everyone is gonna win, win, win!
The legislation also devotes millions of dollars a year to prop up the flailing horse racing industry, and millions more to aiding local taxpayers, treating newly created gambling addicts, and paying down the state’s debt.
Even the state’s museums and theaters, who expect casinos to take a bite out of business, will get up to $6 million a year in restitution.
But that money is not assured....
Bets never are.
Industry analysts say the proliferation of casinos around the country and the bad economy have changed the casino market in recent years. Now, they can no longer expect to profit from new gamblers; they must compete for people who already gamble elsewhere....
So it's a dying industry that will be saving us?
Lawmakers have also given tremendous power to a newly created state gambling commission that will have virtually unchecked authority in selecting developers and deciding regulations, including how much slots are required to pay winners.
The chairman of the five-member board, whom Patrick will appoint, will earn more than the governor, $150,000 a year, and be expected to serve full time.
The other four members - appointed by Patrick, Attorney General Martha Coakley, and Treasurer Steven Grossman - will earn $112,500.
It's already costing you, Massachusetts taxpayers, and not one card has been dealt yet, not one die rolled, not one arm pulled.
Lawmakers, acknowledging the potential for corruption that has bedeviled other states, have emphasized the board’s independence from lawmakers....
But not lobbyists.
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"Patrick signs casinos into approval in Mass.; Legalization ends long-held tie to Puritan culture" November 23, 2011|By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff
With a stroke of a pen yesterday, Governor Deval Patrick brought a sea change to Massachusetts: the legalization of a gambling industry.
In what is perhaps his most significant bill signing since his election five years ago, the governor broke one of the state’s last strands to its Puritan culture. Not since most Blue Laws were wiped off the books three decades ago has a governor and a Legislature approved such a dramatic departure from its original moral groundings.
Patrick, whose support for casinos and a slot parlor was critical, was keenly aware - and defensive - of what he was doing. Promoting the legislation as a job-creating initiative, he emphasized that the approval of casino gambling met his moral benchmarks.
“I never have had a moral objection to gambling,’’ the governor told reporters at the State House event, returning to that theme several times in his answers to reporters’ questions. “I respect those who have a moral objection, but I am not one of them.’’
Still, he was clearly aware that he was causing a stir among many of those who had rallied to his early campaign rhetoric, when he called for a “politics of conviction’’ and vowed to break the Beacon Hill culture and the special interests that dominate it.
It was that bloc of voters - liberal activists, reformers, social service advocates, and independents - who helped launch his insurgent, long-shot candidacy in 2006 and who helped him battle back from the political graveyard in last year’s reelection campaign.
His decision to back the legalization of casinos and a slots parlor cut sharply across the grain of that coalition.
“It is a sad story,’’’ said Susan Tucker, a former state senator and Andover Democrat who was an early and enthusiastic Patrick supporter. “The first I heard that he was considering casinos was on my car radio. I nearly drove off the road.’’
“This seems so much in conflict with everything he stood for when he first ran,’’ said Tucker, who has been a leader in efforts to stop the casino legislation.
But Patrick, with a background in corporate America, had always projected a more complex philosophy than the traditional Massachusetts liberal.
If those political supporters had listened more carefully in 2006, during his first run for public office, they would have picked up on a message he was sending them. “You should stop trying to put me in a box,’’ he kept saying during the campaign when he was criticized for his corporate background as general counsel for Texaco and Coca-Cola.
Or if they had looked.
Related: The Boston Globe Censors Patrick's Past
He was also part of the whole mortgage fraud and mess?
Within nine of months of being sworn in, Patrick announced a plan to legalize three casinos. It hit much of his political base in the gut. With some skill and luck, Patrick was able to avoid some of that backlash in last year’s election, held just months after gambling legislation bogged down over sharp differences between him and the Legislature.
The political consequences for Patrick are now minimal, according to analysts. His decision to announce he would not seek another term has freed him from the pressures of electoral politics.
But just as importantly, the anticasino opposition, while outspoken, has accepted defeat. It was steamrolled by a gambling industry that spent millions of dollars in lobbying Beacon Hill. It also never effectively countered labor unions’ arguments that the construction and operations of the casinos would create thousands of much-needed jobs.
“I don’t think there is a rebellion; I think there is a resignation,’’ said Jeffrey M. Berry, a Tufts University political science professor who closely monitors Massachusetts politics. He said Patrick has helped to ease their concerns by focusing on areas they strongly support, including social services and health care.
That mood was evident this week when Michael S. Dukakis, the former governor and a steadfast opponent of legalized gambling, was asked about Patrick’s role in creating a casino industry in Massachusetts. He displayed an understanding that only a former governor could have.
“You don’t expect to agree with everything the guy does,’’ said Dukakis.
“We are disappointed, but I did things my supporters weren’t happy about,’’ Dukakis said. “On the whole, he has been a good governor… . I am a big fan of what the governor has done on the economic scene. He should be proud of it.’’
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Related: Massachusetts' Casino Coup
Yeah, it's all for your own good:
"Casino bill has $50m for health overhaul; Aims to help set up pay system" November 19, 2011|By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff
Passage of the casino bill this week boosted efforts to overhaul how hospitals and doctors are paid, allocating $50 million of anticipated gambling license fees to help health providers prepare for a new way of treating patients.
Legislative leaders who spoke yesterday at a health care conference in Boston said that they are still working out details but that the money may be used to buy new computers and software to enable providers to better coordinate patients’ care and track costs so they can stick to a budget....
Legislators are drafting a bill that would shift health providers in Massachusetts to a system of global payments, in which providers would be given a monthly per-patient budget for all care, rather than billing for each service. Critics say the current fee-for-service system creates incentives to provide excessive care and lacks coordination....
Related:
The Massachusetts Model: Trailblazing Blueprint
The Massachusetts Model: Doctors' Diet
Yeah, you will be on one, too, readers, so don't get sick.
There is general agreement among government officials and the industry that the state should move to a system of global payments.
I despise anything with that word attached to it, and trust it even less.
But the parties disagree about whether the government should step in to bring down costs, particularly the higher fees that insurers and government payers pay some influential hospitals and doctors groups with market power because of their reputations or geographical dominance. Critics say they earn more money than competitors with less clout without necessarily providing better care....
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Related: Despite quarterly loss, Partners posts profit
The Massachusetts Model: Tax-Exempt Memory Hole
Memory Hole: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
The great $ecret as to why those problems the Globe alluded to exist.
Also see: Kraft Picks a Wynner
I picked a loser because I chose the Globe.
