City Manager Jay Ash has been making the rounds in support of the state’s expanded gambling bill which recently passed the House and is now in the Senate. It is likely this bill will be approved by the Senate at the end of the month and sent on to the governor for his signature.
Ash has appeared on television news shows and on radio in recent weeks touting the obvious advantages of the bill, which will provide three casinos and a slots parlor.
Ash believes as we do, that expanded gambling in Massachusetts will produce thousands of badly needed jobs not only in our district but in the other two districts where casinos will likely be located.
All of this investment and job creation is about private money doing its thing. Taxpayers are not on the hook for any of this investment, which is estimated at $1.5 billion with a huge new revenue stream for the state.
Despite pontifications from the Boston Globe that casino gambling is a sin and will take years to get started and will do no one any good the way this bill reads, we beg to differ.
The Massachusetts State Lottery is the most successful in the nation.
Casino gambling is an adjunct to it plain and simple.
Provisions have been made in this bill to cope with attendant social ills of people being unable to control themselves. Apart from that, expanded gambling in Massachusetts is just another way to keep this money from leaving the state and in the process raise more tax dollars to return to the cities and towns.
Ash knows this. We know this.
We hope everything gets started as soon as possible.
Time is of the essence in this ruinous economy.
The longer we wait, the more jobs that we need to create will not be created.