Win, place and show us the
way out of here
February 8, 2010
Perhaps we shouldn't fret over the huge hole in our
state's budget. All we're doing, after all, is gambling
on a future payoff, some magical amalgam of
business growth and its attendant taxation that will
once again allow the Garden State to rise like a
phoenix from the ash heap of bankruptcy.
And gambling is what we do.
It's difficult to pinpoint precisely when New Jersey
leapt the chasm from sound budgeting procedures
to gambling with our cash, but its seepage into the
culture has been ubiquitous.
Perhaps it dates to the time when our state
government decided to overturn years of largely
fruitless law enforcement against illegal
neighborhood numbers games by legalizing -- no,
commandeering -- the numbers racket into a staterun lottery. Suddenly, numbers runners were
replaced by millions of dollars worth of statewide
advertising designed to entice the local gentry,
mostly those who can least afford it, into placing a
hard-earned buck or two -- or five or 10 or 100 -on the chance to pocket some "free cash." Spend
today on the chance of pocketing a bundle
tomorrow. Isn't that pretty much how government
works these days?
Or perhaps it was in 1978, after voters endorsed a
second-time-around statewide initiative to permit
casino gambling in the hellhole that was then
Atlantic City. This, though a gamble in itself, seemed
a relatively safe bet since only Las Vegas out west,
and Atlantic City to the east, would be gambling
havens protected by law.
Legalized Atlantic City gambling gave New Jersey a
powerful leg up on the 48 other states where games
of chance remained off limits, confined to friendly
basement poker games, church-sponsored bingo
games, and the social club, look-the-other-way type
establishments. Our clever leaders -- again
gambling that the East Coast monopoly would last
forever -- early on ignored any serious rebuilding
of Aycee, opting instead for the quick fix of
hundreds of buses per day hauling blue-haired
slot-machine devotees from Philly, New Yawk, D.C.,
Baltimore, heck some from as far as western
Pennsylvania, Ohio and beyond.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Valhalla.
While those in charge dithered and dallied with the
goal of turning America's Playground back into
America's Playground, wasting years of opportunity,
other states predictably began to cast an envious
gaze toward the seaside money machine. Prestochango, alakazam, and a few state statutes and tribal
declarations later, casino gambling was everywhere.
In the interim, New Jersey did its level best to throw
as many monkey wrenches as possible into the
smooth machinery of casino management. Top
among these self-inflicted wounds was our highminded refusal to approve sports betting on the
island. We voted against it after Bill Bradley, who as
a U.S. senator made a great basketball player,
traveled the length and breadth of the state,
pompously declaring that legalized sports betting
would somehow destroy the "integrity" of sports.
Right!
And so today, sports gamblers drive to Delaware -one of only two states (Oregon) with the chutzpah to
approve sports betting -- to purchase parlays on
any number of games. And if you don't think firstclass, professional sports books make a difference
in a gambling Mecca, well, you've never been to
Vegas.
All of this matters hereabouts, especially
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considering that some 6,000 Cumberland County
residents once traveled to Atlantic City to work every
day. I don't know what that number is today, but I'd b
et it isn't one-third. That would be Cumberland
County, with the highest unemployment rate
statewide.
So how's our state government's gambling on future
payoffs working out for us? Well, according to the
Community Foundation of New Jersey, overtaxed
residents who've voted with their feet in the past five
years, leaving the Garden State for friendlier tax
environs, have taken with them some $70 billion in
wealth, as well as another $2 billion in charitable
contributions.
Not so long ago, New Jersey was the wealthiest state
in the nation, per capita. Today, we are sliding into
the economic abyss. But then, ours won't be the first
fortune lost to the evils of gambling.
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