Lots and lots of stuff today. Let’s get to it.

This is probably the most cogent critique of Judy Baar Topinka’s plan to expand casino gaming. It’s from Elgin Mayor Ed Schock, who is conflicted because he has a boat in his community, but he makes sense.

…casino owners would have to invest in their existing facilities to build the new stations. As for Elgin’s casino, a new boat at a cost of $150 million would have to be built to accommodate the new spaces or they would have to be built on land - a concept that has so far been rejected by the public, Schock said.

And in Illinois, the chances of seeing gambling giants dump more money into their casinos is slim considering they already pay the highest taxes in the country, Schock said.

Elgin’s casino, for example, pays 73 percent, Schock said.

“Why are you going to invest more in Illinois, so you can pay more taxes?” he said. “For (Topinka’s plan) to work they have to look at the tax structure. That’s why the numbers aren’t realistic, because it’s not all new money. It’s not going to work that way.”

Gov. Blagojevich also made a very valid point.

[Blagojevich] said if Topinka’s plan has any chance of passing in the Legislature, it wouldn’t wind up just being one casino for Chicago because other communities would want theirs and other groups would clamor for gaming, including slot machines at horse racing tracks.

“Then all of a sudden it’s not what it was and suddenly Illinois becomes, to quote Treasurer Topinka, Las Vegas,” he said.

Topinka pretty much confirmed this yesterday.

Republican governor candidate Judy Baar Topinka refused Thursday to rule out new casinos for Waukegan and the south suburbs and slot machines at horse tracks, throwing some doubt on her stated opposition to gambling expansion.

“I’d have to see what the legislature sent me,” Topinka told the Daily Herald editorial board Thursday when asked if she’d veto a gambling package that included new casinos for Waukegan and the south suburbs.

Topinka also said she’d “have to look at” a gambling measure that included slot machines for horse tracks like Arlington Park.

Meanwhile, my Sun-Times column this week is also about the plan.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a serious candidate for governor lay out a detailed budget plan as Judy Baar Topinka did this week.

Incumbents always challenge their opponents to produce an alternative plan of their own, and the opponents usually respond with a few broad ideas and a “vision for the future” label slapped on for good measure.

The reason we don’t ever see specific, detailed proposals is that those details invite tremendous amounts of nitpicking, and candidates who get bogged down in nitpicking usually lose. Before they can respond to one critique, the other side and the media have already moved on to, “But what about paragraph 849?”

Gov. Blagojevich went on the offensive,

Gov. Blagojevich was in Chicago, touting figures that show Illinois added more new jobs than any other state in July, and he called the GOP casino proposal a “fraudulent gimmick” that would do anything but balance the budget.

“She would take it back to how it was under Ryan and Topinka with a $5 billion deficit, except there’d be three times the amount of gambling and fewer kids and senior citizens would have health care,” Blagojevich said.

He also said…

“She’s spent the last year or so getting on her high horse attacking my administration, saying things like quote-unquote we have to live within our means, that we shouldn’t have any quick fixes,” the governor said during an event at a Chicago pretzel factory. “And yet, when you propose a massive expansion of gambling that nearly triples the amount of gaming positions that would exist in Illinois, if that’s not a gimmick, I don’t know what is.”

Mayor Daley talked more about the two competing education funding ideas.

The back-and-forth between the candidates came as Mayor Richard Daley appeared to soften his previous demand that a Chicago casino be owned by the city; the state’s nine existing casinos are privately owned.

“I don’t care if it’s private. I don’t care if it’s public. I don’t care if it’s owned by anyone,” Daley said. He still questioned why taxpayers shouldn’t own a casino and enjoy the profits while hiring a private firm to manage it

The Sun-Times editorial was positive for JBT:

This page has long favored a casino for Chicago, as well as more gambling positions for existing casinos, to generate more revenues for state and local governments. And while it is not the ideal way to fund schools, we think it’s better than Blagojevich’s plan to sell or lease the lottery. It gives the state a steady, significant revenue boost that won’t expire a few decades down the road. The state should look to a Chicago casino. Education funding needs more than a casino quick fix, of course, but right now, it’s the best proposal out there.

And an Indian tribe announced plans for a bingo center near DeKalb.

Just months after paying top dollar for a family farm near this southern DeKalb County community, a Kansas Indian tribe announced ambitious plans Thursday night to bring Indian gaming to Illinois.

The Prairie Band Potawatomi of Mayetta, Kan., said they intend to open a 22,000-square-foot bingo hall with electronic gaming stations for 750 players on a 128-acre farm they bought in April. The farm is off University Road, near Preserve Road.

Tribal Chairwoman Tracy Stanhoff conceded that the proposal for the bingo hall would be controversial but said the hall would be good for the region.

UPDATE: I asked some of the other state Republican candidates whether they supported Topinka’s plan. Sen. Dan Rutherford, who previously said that gambling is “an inappropriate way to feed the jabberwocky of a hungry government,” is now in favor of JBT’s proposal. From the campaign:

Sen. Rutherford supports the plan as long as it is an allocation of the 10th license, as has been his position in the past.