Senate Approves Yet More Gambling

If the state of Indiana is addicted to gambling, then the Senate on Wednesday took a big snort of a line of something.

From the Courier-Journal:

INDIANAPOLIS – Customers could buy paper pull-tabs and participate in raffles and other small-stakes wagering at taverns under legislation the Senate narrowly approved today.

Sen. Jim Arnold, D-LaPorte, said House Bill 1153 provides a “fair, level playing field” for bar owners who have been hurt by laws that allow nonprofit veterans and social clubs to offer small-stakes wagering while cracking down on illegal gambling in for-profit establishments.

HB 1153 passed 26-21 and now moves back to the House, where members will consider changes made by the Senate.

The bill’s author, Rep. Dennis Tyler, D-Muncie, said he intends to send the bill to a conference committee where members of the House and Senate will try to work out a compromise.

First of all, the "fair, level playing field" that Jim Arnold thinks is so great is going to hurt the charitable organizations that last year's expansion of gaming was supposedly designed to help.

When every corner bar has pull-tabs, people are not going to bother to go to the VFW across town.

Second, the taxation levels being placed upon this new massive expansion of gambling are negligible. One estimate I saw said that the state will get new revenue in the area of anywhere from $5 to $25 million; Matt Bell (R-Avilla) said in committee that his estimate was $14 to $18 million. Both estimates are so small that even its proponents do not try to make the laughable proposition that it is good for the state's finances.

Third, the level of taxation and its other provisions show the hypocrisy and expose the lie inherent in the claims of Mr. Arnold and Mr. Tyler that this legislation has been put forward to create a "fair, level playing field."

Indeed--and Indiana Gaming Commission Director Ernie Yelton noted as much in statements about the bill--businesses will be book their purchases of the "paper games" as expenses; charities and other organizations presently allowed to sell them do not have that ability.

This could, perversely, result in businesses actually (by virtue of booking more expenses and thus having less income for taxes) paying less in taxes than before and potentially seeing the state getting less revenue overall.

Accordingly, the field will disproportionately favor the businesses, not the charities; the legislation makes a mockery of the claim of creating a "fair, level playing field."

Fourth, HR 1153, as I have mentioned earlier, is a special interest creation that will create what amounts to a de facto pull-tab printing monopoly in the state of Indiana for a company, the Muncie Novelty Company / Indiana Ticket Company, that is based in the district of Dennis Tyler (D, Muncie) and is apparently one of the only such companies in Indiana (if not the only such company) that prints pull tabs.

So the Senate has stabbed the charitable groups it was trying to help last year in the back.

It has approved a massive expansion of gambling.

And it has caved into the special interests with the legislation's "25% from Indiana" provision designed to help a business in the sponsor's district.

I expected this sort of bad policy cronyism from the House Democrats.

I did not expect it from the Senate Republicans.

Name and shame; here are the 26 craven worms, err, senators (16 Democrats, 10 Republicans) that voted for this piece of crap.

Ronnie Alting (R, Lafayette)
Jim Arnold (D, LaPorte)
Phil Boots (R, Crawfordsville)
Jean Breaux (D, Indianapolis)
John Broden (D, South Bend)
Bob Deig (D, Mount Vernon)
Sue Errington (D, Muncie)
Lindel Hume (D, Princeton)
Robert Jackman (R, Milroy)
Luke Kenley (R, Noblesville)
Timothy Lanane (D, Anderson)
Sue Landske (R, Cedar Lake)
James Lewis (D, Charlestown)
David Long (R, Fort Wayne)
Frank Mrvan (D, Hammond)
Allen Paul (R, Richmond)
Marvin Riegsecker (R, Goshen)
Earline Rogers (D, Gary)
Vi Simpson (D, Bloomington)
Connie Sipes (D, New Albany)
Timothy Skinner (D, Terre Haute)
Samuel Smith (D, East Chicago)
Karen Tallian (D, Portage)
John Waterman (R, Shelburn)
Thomas Weatherwax (R, Logansport)
Richard Young (D, Milltown)