[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 135 (Friday, December 8, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2171-E2172]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           GAMBLING EXPLOSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, December 7, 2006

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, gambling is exploding throughout our country. 
I am deeply concerned about the impact this is having on our society. 
Gambling destroys families and preys on the poor.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to share some comments from a recent speech 
delivered by Rev. Tom Grey, national spokesman and field director for 
the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling and National 
Coalition Against Gambling Expansion. Rev. Grey gave these remarks to 
the Seventh Annual Commercial Real Estate Deal Maker Forum on October 
24, 2006, in Cleveland, Ohio, as Ohio voters were considering the 
question on the Ohio ballot to legalize casino gambling. The proposal, 
which included money allocated for education, was dubbed the ``Earn and 
Learn'' initiative. Voters defeated the initiative 57-43 percent on 
election day, November 7.
  Tom has worked to bring attention to the harm gambling can bring to 
families and communities. Excerpts of Tom Grey's speech follow:
       Gambling is like a fungus. If it gets started in one 
     region, it tends to spread. We saw this happening, and in 
     1994 we formed, from the bottom up, a national organization 
     to fight it. We gathered local and state activists and formed 
     the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. We started 
     sharing information and we challenged the spread of gambling 
     at the ballot box. We did that in the peak of hard times for 
     states. State budgets were upside down all across the 
     country, and the casinos were pitching gambling as `the force 
     of history, the wave of the future.' In the beginning there 
     were bands playing while governors cut ribbons and welcomed 
     the riverboats as economic salvation. The promoters declared 
     that gambling was `inevitable,' but a decade later we now 
     know it isn't even desirable.
       The wave of gambling hit a wall when we started exposing 
     the product. Key votes in Ohio, Rhode Island, Missouri, and 
     Florida surprised the gambling promoters. Voters turned it 
     down. They burst the balloon of inevitability. The promoters 
     lost. Ordinary citizens were successful. It's at the ballot 
     box where we have our best results. They can buy legislators 
     with their threats and big campaign contributions, but they 
     can't buy elections.
       Gambling is and always has been an `other side of the 
     tracks business.' Do you really believe that valued lakeside 
     museums and gateway sports complexes are enhanced by having a 
     casino next to them? In addition, there are terrible side 
     effects with this product. Read the label. `May Cause'--
     no--`WILL cause addiction, bankruptcy, crime and 
     corruption.'
       Well, most of you are here this morning because you are 
     business people whose businesses rise with the tide of a 
     flourishing Cleveland, the community where you live and do 
     business. Let me use an example from one of America's most 
     admired businessmen from the past named Herb Taylor.
       For Taylor, a deal wasn't a good deal unless it was a good 
     deal for everyone. Every deal, and every major business 
     decision, had to pass these four questions, or tests:
       Is it the truth?
       Is it fair to all concerned?
       Will it build good will and better friendships?
       Will it be beneficial to all concerned?


                            is it the truth?

       The casino crowd has made billions turning teachers, school 
     kids and PTA parents into gambling lobbyists. They do this by 
     promising money for education, and that's exactly what 
     they're doing in Ohio. Gambling promoters need to pick 
     education or some other worthy community cause to buy their 
     way into our communities or states. They want us to overlook 
     the fact that the lion's share of the money goes to them. In 
     Ohio, it's 55 percent. They want us to think the money's not 
     going to the gambling promoters; they want you to think it's 
     going to the schools.
       Gambling isn't new money. It's re-directed money. It's 
     trading dollars. Gambling came to New Mexico in 1994, and by 
     1998 the state's Secretary of Taxation and Revenue reported 
     roughly $1 to $1.2 billion per year in other taxable sales 
     had fallen off the balance sheet. Entertainment, retail, 
     restaurants, and services took huge hits from the casinos, 
     and as a result, paid far less in taxes. The best the 
     economists could say was the economy was playing a `zero sum 
     game.' The casinos were winning and the other businesses were 
     losing.
       Is the gambling sales pitch the truth? NO! No state has 
     gambled itself rich, including Nevada--a state that should 
     serve as a model for what a state can produce with gambling. 
     Nevada recently passed the largest tax increase in that 
     state's history. Republican Governor Kenny Guinn told his 
     legislature in his inaugural address, `Our revenue system is 
     broken because it has relied on regressive and unstable 
     taxes.' (Guinn understands that when you take money from the 
     citizens to run the government, it's still taxes, even if you 
     do it with a slot machine.) Guinn told his legislature, 
     `Implicit in this (gambling) tax strategy was a belief that 
     the revenues from gaming and tourism could keep pace with our 
     growing and diverse population. Unfortunately, this strategy 
     has failed.'
       Nevada ranks near the bottom in per pupil spending on 
     education, and spends less per capita on Medicaid than any 
     other state. If those two areas don't concern you, take a 
     look at where Nevada ranks in high school dropout rates, teen 
     pregnancy, and children living in poverty. If the epicenter 
     of gambling can't gamble itself rich--if the poster-child of 
     casino-gunded government can't balance the budget, and if the 
     model of slot machine largesse fails its kids so miserably, 
     why would Ohio want to follow Nevada on its downward path?


                      is it fair to all concerned?

       The simple truth is that 30 to 50 percent of casino 
     gambling money comes from problem and pathological gamblers. 
     Can anyone think of anything more cynical than funding 
     education on the backs of sick and troubled people?
       There are about 400 of you here this morning. If casinos 
     come to town, you can expect about 12 of you will become this 
     kind of addicted gambler. You might not steal, but the 
     addiction will likely cost you your home, your savings, your 
     family, and your self respect. It could be you, your spouse, 
     your siblings, your children. In the end, this addiction 
     humiliates formerly great citizens to the point of 
     desperation and even suicide. Gambling addicts think about 
     suicide more than any other addictive group, and they act on 
     those thoughts.
       Inviting a casino to town is playing Russian roulette with 
     your friends and neighbors; employees and business partners. 
     At 3 percent, which is conservative in a casino town, it 
     would be like giving you a handgun with 400 chambers, and 12 
     of them are loaded. Are you sure you want to pass that around

[[Page E2172]]

     the tables? Are you willing to pull that trigger?
       New addicted gamblers cost more than $11,000 each--MINIMUM 
     in `externalities.' That's extra costs the society pays for 
     law enforcement, incarcerations, lost worker productivity, 
     divorce, health care and the like. Gambling isn't 
     entertainment like shopping or the movies. It always brings 
     with it a tide of what we call the ABCs of Gambling: 
     Addiction, Bankruptcy, Crime and Corruption. These cost the 
     state, and the taxpayers, and you, the businesses, money. 
     That's why gambling is a net loss to the economy.
       So what's your share? Let's do the math. Park a casino in 
     your town, and the addiction rate will hit 3 percent or 
     higher. Each new addict costs the economy more than $11,000. 
     That's about $33,000 for each hundred people, or $330 a year 
     for each of you. And that's using the most conservative 
     numbers available!


            will it build good will and better friendships?

       Well, I doubt it. Making slots promoters rich by turning 
     citizens into losers isn't a friendly relationship. It's 
     adversarial, predatory and parasitic. It doesn't build 
     friendship. It builds cynicism and despair. Good will means 
     the customer goes home and says I got a good deal.
       Why does gambling have to keep expanding? Why do the 
     casinos need to be open at 3 in the morning? Because that's 
     what it takes to suck the addicted people dry. You just don't 
     see many church-going college graduates that pay their credit 
     cards on time yanking on slot machines at 3 in the morning. 
     Did you notice this proposal has already set the stage for 
     the conversion of slots parlors into full-blown casinos?
       Corruption is government trying to make losers of its 
     citizens by legalizing something that damages the very health 
     of its citizens, all under the guise of a painless revenue 
     stream. Take another look. The revenue stream is running 
     backwards, and the pain is intense. History has proven this--
     over and over again. Gambling does not build friendships. It 
     builds dependencies. It breeds corruption.


                Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

       Beneficial to all means everyone should be better off, not 
     worse off. John Kennedy once said a rising tide lifts all 
     boats. If gambling made all winners, it would be beneficial 
     to all concerned. Of course, gambling makes losers and the 
     citizens are worse off because of that. Even the people who 
     never gamble lose money: the citizens and taxpayers. They get 
     stuck with additional costs that they didn't have before: 
     those public health and crime costs that ALWAYS follow 
     gambling.
       In order to enrich themselves, these slots promoters are 
     asking you to divert money from legitimate businesses, move 
     jobs from real commerce to casinos, and give the taxpayers 
     the bill for the social costs. Remember, the promoters openly 
     admit they expect Ohio to sacrifice the health and lives of 
     109,000 of its citizens. They propose to make those people 
     very sick, and then spend another $28 million to treat them. 
     And even that sum isn't going to cover the bill. Not by a 
     long shot. Do the math.
       Multiply that 109,000 new addicts the promoters ADMIT they 
     will cause, times the $11,000 each for social costs. That 
     comes to $1,199,000,000 loss for the economy of Ohio. Why 
     would we accept making 109,000 people sick, and then losing 
     more than a billion dollars from the economy to boot?
       The Pew Research Center just this year found three 
     important changes in Americans' thoughts about gambling. 
     First, they found that 7 in 10 Americans say that legalized 
     gambling encourages people to gamble more than they can 
     afford. That's up about 10 percent in the past 10 years. 
     Second, a plurality, 42 percent of adults say casinos have a 
     negative impact on their communities, while only about a 
     third, 34 percent, say casinos have a positive impact. Third, 
     and most revealing, the study found that only 23 percent of 
     Americans actually enjoy gambling. That's down from 34 
     percent just 10 years ago. Think about that. If your product 
     drops 11 percent in the people who enjoy it, you're in 
     trouble.

                          ____________________