Organized Crime: Together We Can!
Sep 24, 2007 18:16
I guess
that's what Deval Patrick meant. We can continue to
give away $500 million in loopholes, and who knows
how many millions in pointless tax breaks to
corporations, and then call for saving our crumbling
roads and bridges by taking over the vice businesses.
Like the ghetto guys that turn to selling drugs
because we've exported, or de-educated them out of,
any viable means of self-support, politicans have
given away our own honest revenues and now, fearing
another taxpayer backlash, are exploiting the poor,
who can't try to get ahead of their lot by gambling
at stocks and bonds so they gamble at slots and
cards, with much worse odds, and no Federal Reserve
to bail them out. Hey, it's voluntary, so why not
cash in? Our Great White (um, Black) Father is now
setting us up in the racket; he just has to beat
those other colored folks, the Indians, to the
punch. The proud Indian tribes, whose restitution
for almost complete decimation at white hands is
to do for white society what is considered unclean
but unavoidable.
It would be one thing if our officials decided to decriminalize and regulate gambling for the protection of those who need it and to take the crime out of it (as they should do with drugs), and to impose ordinary taxes on casinos, as businesses who have to pay their fair share for public services. It's a totally different thing for the government to become an investor in gambling, to have an incentive to increase it and entice people to do it -- the lottery spends a lot of money on advertising. Why not become equity partners in drugs, tobacco, alcohol, guns, prostitution -- these are all things people will keep on buying, legal or not, and why not grow the business here, so we can use the loot to pay for our schoolchildren's education, and our roads, and our ...whatever's the next victim of public neglect. Our public officials will be meta-pushers, the end will justify the means, and we can set aside some of the money to "repair" the resulting damage -- broken homes, spouse and child abuse, destitution and bankruptcy. That seems fair, right?
This is not what I was expecting when I voted for Deval Patrick, and encouraged others to do so. I was duped, I admit it. The gambling decision is the last straw, after many development policy disappointments, conflict-of-interest revelations, closed-door deliberations, expanded corporate tax giveaways, etc. I tuned back into politics because I believed in him. I told him: the "triumph of hope over experience."
Never mind.
It would be one thing if our officials decided to decriminalize and regulate gambling for the protection of those who need it and to take the crime out of it (as they should do with drugs), and to impose ordinary taxes on casinos, as businesses who have to pay their fair share for public services. It's a totally different thing for the government to become an investor in gambling, to have an incentive to increase it and entice people to do it -- the lottery spends a lot of money on advertising. Why not become equity partners in drugs, tobacco, alcohol, guns, prostitution -- these are all things people will keep on buying, legal or not, and why not grow the business here, so we can use the loot to pay for our schoolchildren's education, and our roads, and our ...whatever's the next victim of public neglect. Our public officials will be meta-pushers, the end will justify the means, and we can set aside some of the money to "repair" the resulting damage -- broken homes, spouse and child abuse, destitution and bankruptcy. That seems fair, right?
This is not what I was expecting when I voted for Deval Patrick, and encouraged others to do so. I was duped, I admit it. The gambling decision is the last straw, after many development policy disappointments, conflict-of-interest revelations, closed-door deliberations, expanded corporate tax giveaways, etc. I tuned back into politics because I believed in him. I told him: the "triumph of hope over experience."
Never mind.
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