For those of you in Boston tomorrow, February the 4th, Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy and Governor Deval Patrick will be speaking at the Seaport World Trade Center at 8pm. The event is open to the public, but space is limited and they encourage that you RSVP.
If you’re still undecided going into Tuesday’s primary, or are already an Obama supporter and just want to hear the man speak, this is a must-see event on the eve of what could be the critical day in the campaign.
Besides hearing from Senator Obama, another excellent reason to go to this event is Deval Patrick. Patrick took office just a few weeks before I moved to Germany, so I didn’t know much about him when he spoke at the Obama lunch I attended a few weeks ago. But, wow! I was blown away by his presence in the few brief words he said to introduce Obama.
I’m in sunny Bavaria the next few days and am very sad I won’t be able to make it, but if you’re in Massachusetts tomorrow, this is not to be missed!
Update: if you’re worried the Seaport event will be packed, Rebecca C. writes that there will also be a pre-event, “Hands across Mass Ave Bridge,” organized by Obama supporters and students. Go to the Mass Ave bridge from 3:30pm – 5:30pm to join in.
Posted on 3 February 2008
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Patrick is a good speaker, but not a good governor. Like any good tax-and-spend Democrat he wants to increase government spending, but instead of raising taxes (or fees, as Romney did) Patrick is counting on the legislature passing a bill legalizing casinos in Massachusetts. Patrick’s 2009 budget that he released basically relies on that revenue, even though it may very well fail to pass. If that happens, it’s unclear what the end result will be: reduced spending or a higher deficit.
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@Joe – that’s interesting to hear. As I said, I don’t know much more about Gov. Patrick than what I learned from watching him speak for a few minutes, and I was very impressed by that.
Casinos are legal everywhere here in Germany, and in the seedy parts of town (to the extent that Munich has a seedy part of town at all) you’ll find them on every other street corner. Up to 60% of the turnover of the casinos is taxed by the government, and gross winnings are taxed at 80% by the government. Even with this heavy taxation, they attract millions of visitors.
In the US, given that almost every state already has legalized gambling in the form of state lottos, some of which are privatized, I don’t see anything wrong with legalizing casinos as well. I don’t know how likely it is that the Massachusetts legislature will agree with me, though (not having heard of this issue at all until your comment!) and basing a budget on an unknown like that does sound a little bit shaky.
On the other hand, perhaps it’s a tactic to push through the casino legalization bill, and maybe that’s not so stupid?
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Indeed, I think lotteries are a bad idea as well, as they tend to tax the wrong people, or at least do so disproportionally to their need. I’ll spend $1 on a lotto ticket if the jackpot is $230 million, but I can spare a dollar and I don’t play every week. I see a lot of “tougher luck” people walking out of the Store 24 near my house with 3 or 4 scratch-and-win tickets. They often drop the non-winning tickets on the ground just outside the store.
The nice thing about having Foxwoods and others a reasonable distance away from Boston is that it creates a bit of an impediment to get there. Of course it means that the Commonwealth doesn’t realize any of its revenue. I fear that casinos closer to home will remove that impediment, and being along a bunch of negatives (like casinos in the “seedy” parts of town.)
For people who want the exciting gambling trip, they’ll probably go to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. I can’t see a whole lot of gambling tourism in Massachusetts. On the other hand, Foxwoods is probably pretty successful, but it’s in the middle of nowhere.
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When the states started introducing higher cigarette taxes in the 90s, they often used much of the proceeds to fund anti-smoking advertising campaigns, health care and bioscience.
What if the proceeds from lottery tax revenues were used to fund education, particularly numeracy?
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Vice taxes turn the state into dope peddlers and pimps. Preying predominantly on the lower income brackets. In my experience generally speaking people like you and me go to places like Atlantic city and Vegas when we want to splurge a little and gamble. All these small regional gaming centers do is make the game more accessible to the people who really cannot afford to be doing it in the first place.
I live in a very poor part of California (yes there is such a place) and we were sold the state lottery, Indian gaming and cigarette taxes etc as a long term solution to public school funding and other critical infrastructure support problems. And yet every year we have the same problems we had before all of these new sources of state revenue were available.
If you want to enable people to gamble in your community, and that is ok with your morals then that is fine. But if you are on the fence don’t let the politicians sell it to you as some sort of panacea that will somehow solve your states budget problems.
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I’m not sure whether legalizing casinos is morally ok or not; I’m new to thinking about these kinds of policy questions. It seems to me that there might be some kind of relationship to consumer protection or usury laws — all are legislation that protect the consumer from making bad purchases by making it illegal to offer him “bad” choices.
One thing I’d have to think about is whether or not it’s a condescending morality to let wealthy people choose whether or not to fly to Vegas, but to restrict poor people from being able to make that decision for themselves.
It seems like if you do it right — spend vice tax revenue on improving community standards, education, facilities — then you will end up eliminating the vice itself, so there’s no way a vice tax could be a permanent solution in that setup…
But I’m sure they’re not a panacea, as you say Kennon.
In Germany the casinos are such an established part of the landscape, most people just seem to ignore them.
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Just wanted to let you know that there’s going to be a massive visibility event for Obama before the World Trade Center event on the 4th. Supporters are going to rally on the Mass. Ave Bridge in Boston/Cambridge. The event is called “Hands Across Mass Ave Bridge”. I think it goes from 3:30-5:30. A lot of Boston students are getting involved. Should be pretty cool.
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Rebecca,
I will bring some friends to the Mass Ave bridge event tomorrow. Thanks for the pointer.
Miguel.
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Awesome! It’s going to be fun. See you there.
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It makes me a little jelous on how campaigners only visit states important to them. It makes it seem like not every voter’s vote is equal. I mean whatever gets you votes from who ever matters is good, but don’t forget the people from bigger states.
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