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The Tribune comes clean
Monday, Nov 22, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller * The Tribune editorialized Sunday against the gaming expansion bill that’s currently sitting in the Senate…
Yeah, that’s great. Unemployed single mothers relying on a human service provider? Tough luck. School kids? Fuhgettaboutit. Sick people without insurance? Heal thyselves. We can’t help you with a bit of gaming revenue because the Tribune wants cuts, and only cuts. I’m not taking a position on this bill, but I’m no big opponent of gaming expansion. It just doesn’t bother me. The Tribune says much the same thing…
They’re OK with gaming, particularly when their company had their own casino on the table. What they most clearly don’t want is more revenue for the state. …Adding… Some of you are woefully ignorant of fiscal history, so here’s a little chart from the Sunshine Review…  …Adding More… These are not inflation-adjusted dollars.
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- Doug Dobmeyer - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 6:35 am:
Rich you and most of the media are for this expansion that sucks Chgo into gambler’s heaven. I live in Chgo and people here don’t want a casino.
We have a lame duck mayor, an election that means something this time…having some suburban and downstate legislators foist a casino on Chgo is not a wise policy.
This fight is not about morality, so don’t throw that red herring into the mix. It’s about a city that wants control of it’s destiny.
You know me well enough I don’t want to see mothers and kids thrown under the bus. We have unemployment and public aid for people unable to work.
What we don’t need is all of the fat in the budget, like the $750,000 to Bloomington’s parks department for unspecified work or the other $17 M to other towns for their parks. That shopuld all be removed in times of audterity.
The state has blindly muddled along spending as if there is no recession. And I don’t intend on the state using Chgo as a shield to impose moree gambling on an over saturated market.
Get real and cut the budget.
From a good liberal Democrat/Green party guy.
Doug Dobmeyer
Spokesperson
Task Force to Oppose Gambling in Chicago
- wordslinger - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 6:55 am:
A downtown casino makes sense, as do slots at the airports. At least you have a shot at out-of-state money.
I wouldn’t count on a boatload of new money, though. After the one-shot from a Chicago license fee, you’re probably just cannibalizing some of the existing casinos.
The Trib’s deep thinkers are free to outline their cuts anytime. Despite what their guy Bill Brady said, all the information is out there. It’s just a matter of putting pencil to paper.
- lakecountydem - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 7:00 am:
I’m not a big gambling proponent either, but your attack the Trib is unfair: they’re saying in the line you quote that gambling is an unstable source of new revenue. Maybe the Trib argues against increasing revenue in general in other editorials, but that’s not what you’re quoting or attacking. One can be in favor of tax increases over gambling expansion to raise funds, and it’s particularly ironic to cite the poor to attack the Trib: gambling is a hugely regressive tax. It takes money not only out of the gambler’s pocket but his/her local economy - whether the net effect is progressive/regressive is debatable. Personally the only places I think gambling expansion is called for are places near the border where the state is losing revenues to other states. BUT even these will take money from other Illinois casinos and other states — does your concern for welfare recipients end at the border? Beloit Wisconsin ain’t exactly Lake Forest.
- Wensicia - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 7:41 am:
As I’ve said before, I would like to see Waukegan get a casino. We desperately need the jobs and revenue Gurnee has sucked away from us over the years, even though they oppose this, natch’. Would also bring in revenue from Wisconsin, I’m sure their governor won’t mind.
- Lester Holt's Mustache - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 8:12 am:
“Get real and cut the budget.”
$17,750,000 for parks? OK, good job. Only $12,882,250,000 left to go. Where, exactly, in the budget is that much fat?
- CircularFiringSquad - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 8:46 am:
LakeCountyDem:
Capt fax is spot on.
he Trib has always, always fronted for gamblers; especially the race tracks and Mr. D’s little complex in Arlington Heights.
They are against a bigger plan because it cuts into the Mr. D’s racino plan.
Usually the Trib hides behind “racing=growing agribusiness nonsense” as if the land used to breed, train and feed horses will somehow evaporate.
- Quinn T. Sential - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 9:00 am:
{They’re OK with gaming, particularly when their company had their own casino on the table. What they most clearly don’t want is more revenue for the state.}
Much of your criticism of the Tribune is generally on target, but this time you are off base.
I read the Tribune editorial and nowhere do I see a suggestion or an argument that the Tribune does not want more revenue for the state.
The Tribune’s argument is based on three things:
(1) Looking to gambling as a quick fix is a cheap panacea for the fundamental problem that ails the state; spending growth which exponetially exceeds revenue growth.
(2) This particular piece of legislation is too large and ill conceived and may well be counter productive.
(3) Doing this in the veto session; while carefully having avoided gambling as a subject of discussion with the electorate during the campaign is disingenious.
The Tribune is right on all counts. The gambling money is fools gold in the first place.The economic environment for an expansion of this magnitude will be counter productive because this canibalizes what you have already far too much, and devalues what you would otherwise believe to be substantially valuable by taking it too far.
- doug dobmeyer - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 9:05 am:
Lester,
U want to thu the state budget wth me, come on up to Chgo. I have no idea who u r, but assume u know something.
- lawyerlady - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 9:28 am:
I don’t have much of an opinion on the morality of a casino. I don’t gamble, and I do think it takes advantage of certain types of people, but overall, the issue just doesn’t motivate me.
My problem with the casinos is actually something along the lines of the Tribune (sorry, Rich). I look at this attempt to increase revenue as putting a little Snoopy band-aid over a severed limb. Perhaps it might make us feel better than doing nothing, but in reality, shouldn’t we be focused on stopping the bleeding?? Our state is fiscally dysfunctional, and until we sort out some of the big problems (medicaid, pensions), throwing some additional revenue at the problem doesn’t solve anything. I’m not ultimately anti-casino or anti-tax-increase, but my problem with those solutions is that they help us to put off the real problems, which are just compounding.
- Anonymous - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 9:52 am:
“…all the information is out there…” that may be true but the implication is that the information is open and obvious, which it is not. Look at the line items in the budget bills: how much information is there in “operational expenses” or “contractual services”? There is indeed waste buried in those phrases, but it takes a lot more shoveling to dig it out.
- Louis G. Atsaves - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 10:05 am:
With casino gambling revenues in Illinois in a state of decline the answer is more casino gambling?
The Tribune has a point here. And I am no Tribune fan. Too bad the anti-Tribune knee jerk reaction is blinding to so many around here.
- Leroy - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 10:45 am:
I agree with Atsaves.
The casinos no longer seem to think investing in Illinois is a good idea. Yet Illinois wants to invest more?
Seems like a dangerous bet to me.
(And I also agree about the anti-Trib knee jerk reactions around here, too)
- zatoichi - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 11:03 am:
If gambling revenue is drifting down, how does building more casinos increase the total revenue? Construction costs/job are great, but once past that it is mostly peeling off a slice of remixed existing dollars like most business that do not create a product. If the available existing dollars slip you simply get less.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 11:08 am:
I think Louis has a point about the Tribune having a point, Rich, and as much as I mock the Tribune, I don’t think their making the point you think.
They’re saying that eliminating the state’s structural budget deficit can’t rely on unstable revenue streams - declining revenue streams - like gambling.
It’d be like trying to use the tobacco tax, or imposing a tax on horse-drawn carriages, to balance the deficit.
The irony of course is that the Tribune has routinely opposed the most sound proposal for fixing the state budget’s structural problems: eliminating unnecessary spending and shoring up the foundation with:
1) a small but broad-based increase in the income tax;
2) Streamlining sales tax;
3) Providing property tax relief.
Included in the long list of wasteful spending we need to examine is tax expenditures for corporations where the state provides hundreds of millions in tax credits for companies with zero economic benefit returned to the state. That HAS to end.
- Plutocrat03 - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 11:17 am:
The Trib is spot on here. The proposal on the table is way too large and complex. Link seems to have constructed this monstrosity with the idea of parcelling a piece of the pie to enough legislators to literally buy their votes.
The reality is that any expansion of gambling cannibalizes the revenues of existing recreational venues. Furthermore, since the casinos tend to be owned by out-of-state corporations, the profits that remain after taxes leave the region. Losses will be felt in the theater and food business as well as a redistribution of cash flow from the existing gambling venues. Massive expansion means a massive redistribution. The net increase in revenue will only be a fraction of what is being promised.
We don’t even know how much the Des Plaines casino will bring in yet.. However, the pols will spend every bit of the anticipated income and then some, leaving the State in a deeper hole.
I have no problem with gambling per se, but I am savvy enough to recognize the chimera of economic development by gambling expansion.
Terry Link’s bill is a catastrophe in the making.
- 42nd Ward - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 11:47 am:
State spending went up something like 30% in six years, with no corresponding economic or population growth. How about we address that as well as talk of revenue enhancement to match.
- Ghost - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 12:09 pm:
Add casinos to the airports. Not just slots but full on casinos. Structure a deal with the airlines to let people bump flights if they want to linger longer in the casinos for no extra charge.
Fly in, gamble, fly out. If you want to draw in new revenue. To my knowlege we would be the only State with full on casinos attached to airports… heck lets toss a few slots on the planes…..
- Panacea - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 12:18 pm:
Gambling is where you go after kicking every other dead horse and you don’t have the political will to cut spending and you know you can’t raise taxes.
That horse is dead too.
- Rod - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 12:29 pm:
Just so everyone knows what the Tribune is discussing is Senate Bill 3970. I think the Tribune editiorial misses the biggest problem with SB 3970 and that is the distribution of the revenue from a Chicago based casino.
This bill allows the City of Chicago to keep 70% of the revenue and only 30% would go to the state to in anyway pay down the deficit. Of the 70% of the revenue that Chicago would get not one dollar could be used for operating expenses of either the City or the Chicago Public Schools.
The so called “gaming endowment funds” could only be used “for construction and maintenance of
infrastructure within the municipality, including but not limited to roads, bridges, transit infrastructure, municipal facilities, the construction and maintenance of schools, parks and cultural institution facilities, and
museums” within Chicago. The last thing Chicago needs now are more funds for capital projects when it can not pay for its existing police, fire, and school teachers.
Chicago’s problem is not capital projects, but rather operating expenditures for the City and the Chicago Public Schools. The bill does nothing to solve that problem or to offset Chicago’s growing budget deficit and the school district’s equally growing deficit.
Also completely not discussed by the Tribune editiorial is the power of the proposed Chicago Casino Development Board to issue bonds that are not fixed rate, but rather are variable rate that are not to exceed the maximum rate authorized by the Bond Authorization Act that could utilize interest rate swap agreements also known as derivatives. This by the way is exactly how our nation got into this recession isn’t it?
The Chicago Tribune editioral missed many, many more major problems with the bill and focused on a simple argument of the need for additional cuts and the possible over supply of gaming outlets in the State. Really the problems are larger than that.
- Lakefront Liberal - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 12:47 pm:
“- 42nd Ward - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 11:47 am:
State spending went up something like 30% in six years, with no corresponding economic or population growth. How about we address that as well as talk of revenue enhancement to match.”
Well, over a six year period state spending would have to grow by about 20% just to keep up with inflation (assume average 3% inflation). In the six years from 2003 to 2009 general revenue fund spending went up about 25% ($22,335 million in 2003 to $27,854 million projected in 2009). During that time period Illinois did have about a 2.5% growth in population. Taking inflation and population growth into account it seems to me that general revenue fund spending has really grown only a couple of percent, not 30%.
- wordslinger - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 12:58 pm:
Rod, you’re spot on about the swaps. Municipal authorities should not mess with that stuff. The downside is too steep. The only sure winners are the investment bankers.
Further evidence that the bonding section was written by a muni investment banker? The act would allow up to 75% of bonds to be issued through “negotiated” sale, rather than competitive bids.
That, my friend, is the smell of the meat a’ cookin. The mayor’s board would pick the underwriters for up to 75% of bonds.
There’s no good reason for negotiated muni bond sales, unless you’re into dangerous, weirdo stuff like swaps. Which you shouldn’t be.
- the Patriot - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 1:18 pm:
Lester, We spend roughly 15 billion more a year than we did 8 years ago in this state. That is almost a 25% increase. You say show me where to cut, I say show me where the extra services are.
Just take out the last budget Ryan signed for starters. Eliminate everything in that budget that is no longer relevant whic will put you at about 45 billion. Take Rod’s 15 billion in additional spending and cut everything not essential. We will have a 55 billion dollar budget easy with no casion and no tax hike.
As for the Trib, I don’t care. They were willing to discuss options with Rod as long as it was working for them. They are as credible as The Onion.
Casionos generate state revenue, but the net economic impact is a wash if not negative. You prevent real economic growthy by syphonining money out of communities. You cannot deny the fact that when you walk through a casion 75% of the visitors clearly do not have money to lose. You also cannot deny the fact that casino attendance is up on days after government checks arrive. Not good for net economic recovery.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 1:42 pm:
@Lakefront Liberal -
Great analysis, except that:
1) You can’t really use the generic inflation rate of 3% inflation, since such a large part of the budget is health care. Health care inflation has averaged 7% over the last decade.
2) You have to factor in not just population growth, but growth in demand for services. For example, while DCFS caseloads have dropped, adoption services for foster kids have skyrocketed. As the economy tanked, the demand for a broad array of social safety net programs skyrocketed.
Further proof that its much easier for Tea Partiers to oversimplify the problem and offer simplistic solutions (If we just cut spending…) than it is to truly understand the problem and come up with solutions that work.
All I can say is, thank goodness the Tea Party wasn’t in charge of putting a man on the moon. They probably would’ve suggested just lassoing it and pulling it down, ala Jimmy Stewart.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 1:45 pm:
===We spend roughly 15 billion more a year than we did 8 years ago in this state===
FY 2002 General Funds Expenditures: $25 billion.
FY 2010 General Funds Expenditures: $26 billion.
FY 2011 projected General Funds Expenditures: $24.5 billion
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Illinois_state_budget
- Just Observing - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 1:49 pm:
I’m not going to repeat a lot of the great points other commenters have made, other than to simply state that Trib is right — enough with these quick fix gimmicks and get down to cutting, cutting and cutting. And for all those that say little wasteful programs here and there (e.g. legislative scholarships, etc.) won’t make a dent, how can the citizens of Illinois be supportive of tax increases or revenue expansions when we know the legislature has not seriously tackled out of control spending.
- Tom Joad - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 2:04 pm:
The time has come for an expansion of casinos. Rich is right when he refers to the Tribune’s continuous call for cutting spending.
The Repubs wouldn’t support a tax increase before the election. They are less likely to support one after the Tea Party has them running scared about primary challenges. They have not proposed any revenue increases, only cuts of nameless programs and getting rid of the “waste” they always bring up.
The existing ten licensees have had regional monopolies long enough. Their original owners are millionaires. It is time for competition.
It will take a few years for Illinois rust belt economy to recover from the recession we are in. in the meantime, we have to do whatever we can to put people back to work.
Let’s get Illinois moving again!
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 2:04 pm:
Thanks Rich for once again explaining to folks what the General Revenue Fund is.
Like Wisconsin’s governor, a lot of folks seem to think the way to fix the state budget is by cutting federal spending in Illinois.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 2:07 pm:
And thanks for the updated chart from Sunshine, too.
Democrats get no credit for cutting spending, which looks to be down over $5 billion from just a couple years ago.
- wordslinger - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 2:08 pm:
===We spend roughly 15 billion more a year than we did 8 years ago in this state===
FY 2002 General Funds Expenditures: $25 billion.
FY 2010 General Funds Expenditures: $26 billion.
FY 2011 projected General Funds Expenditures: $24.5 billion–
Again, with the facts, Miller. You’ll never make it in politics or media that way. Doesn’t stir the blood of the nebbies.
- steve schnorf - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 2:39 pm:
and those are nominal dollars, not inflation adjusted. In real dollars spending in 11 is down more than 20% from 02
- Ghost - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 3:16 pm:
I wonderif those looking for budget cuts would support early release and hom confinement for most criminals. We waste a lot of money keeping somone locked up - food, medicine, shelter, guards, access to law libraries and legal proceedings, discounted comissaries etc.
We could save a fortune if we got rid of prisons…. maybe just wall off manahtten and drop em all in there…hey these cost savings cuts are easy….
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 3:16 pm:
Schnorf 2014
“Leadership that can Count”
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 3:20 pm:
@Ghost -
Most of the money “wasted” on locking up inmates is salaries for staff…not libraries or commissaries.
25% or roughly 10,000 Illinois inmates are in prison for non-violent drug convictions.
The cost is roughly $40K per person, according to Illinois Dept. of Corrections.
Paroling them would save $400 million per year, less the cost of more parole agents, job training programs, continued drug treatment and monitoring, etc.
I figure the state would save about $250 million per year, give or take, but you should ask Schnorf.
- Rambler - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 3:53 pm:
The Illinois budget is similar to the federal budget in that the central issue is entitlements rather than general funds expenditures.
According to the Sunshine Review, 2010 state and local spending on pensions equals 12.3 BILLION dollars.
How fast is this number growing? Dan Hynes and the Democrats don’t make it easy to find out. If the number is 9% per year — typical of other states — that’s $1.1 billion a year, which would suck up Quinn’s tax hike in 3 years.
In my view it’s a safe bet that the budget will remain intractable until substantial reforms are made to the pension structures of currrent workers and retirees.
- wordslinger - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 4:02 pm:
–Schnorf 2014
“Leadership that can Count”–
YDD, I’m with you, brother. Maybe he can bring Edgar, Reilly, Lawrence, Dillard and the crew back with him, too.
Those folks are the real conservatives, in the best Midwestern tradition of Ronald Reagan and Dick Lugar. Not like the cheap hustlers who yammer on cable TV now. Workhorses, not showhorses.
For all the full-moon right-wingers who have been crying for somebody to go mano-a-mano with Madigan and Daley, you already had them (not like Madigan and Daley are liberals).
And it worked out pretty good; pretty, pretty, pretty good, as Larry David would say.
I appreciated them back in the day, but God knows I respect their guts and ability a lot more now that we’re in the intellectual and competence desert of the Palin/Boehner/McConnell/Brady GOP.
Reagan, Goldwater and Dirksen would have had nothing to do with any of them. Neither would Bolsheviks like Ford, Rockefeller or Powell.
- steve schnorf - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 4:41 pm:
Rambler: and what entitlement get paid out of non-GRF? A piece of pension (highway workers, etc)and that’s about it.
Guys, with all humility and appreciation of your cynical endorsements, KNOCK IT OFF! Someone might take you seriously.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 4:43 pm:
Rambler, you can’t mix in local pension with state pension and then conclude that Quinn’s tax hike gets eaten up in x years. Back to math class for you.
- wordslinger - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 5:01 pm:
–The Illinois budget is similar to the federal budget in that the central issue is entitlements rather than general funds expenditures.–
Iraq, Afghanistan, 13 to none aircraft carrier fleets, untoughable Air Force, troops in over 100 countries…
Pretty much the same as Illinois. By the way, Social Security is still in surplus. They purchase T-bonds.
- Rambler - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 5:18 pm:
==Rambler, you can’t mix in local pension with state pension and then conclude that Quinn’s tax hike gets eaten up in x years. Back to math class for you.==
You are amusing at times.
OK take the state part — 8.3 billion dollars. The increases would eat up Quinn’s tax hike in FOUR years.
Regarding local pensions, the Peoria Journal Star says “the state’s requirements have saddled local governments with huge unfunded mandates.”
Wordslinger, that’s just an obfuscation. And the central issue with federal entitlements is their projected future path, as it is with Illinois pensions and retiree benefits.
- Quinn T. Sential - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 5:30 pm:
Does Sunshine have a corresponding handy-dandy pocket chart for revenues representing the same period illustrated?
Its not as much about how much money is spent as it is how much money is spent in comparison to the amount of money you actually have to spend.
Spending money that is not there is the problem.
- Park - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 7:33 pm:
“Yeah, that’s great. Unemployed single mothers relying on a human service provider? Tough luck. School kids? Fuhgettaboutit. Sick people without insurance? Heal thyselves.”
Ummm… we can’t do all this stuff…never could. Blago tried. Ummm..that’s what the feds are for. They can print money. We’re going to have to end many, many of the touchy-feeley programs. That’s “have to.” Maybe the “single moms” should think about either being non-single, or, non-moms”.
- Anonymous - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 8:23 pm:
==Maybe the “single moms” should think about either being non-single, or, non-moms”.==
Stay classy Park.
- Insider - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 8:40 pm:
What I think is interesting is that this expansion bill is so unrealistic.
The last time the Legislature got involved in a casino license it took 12 years to straighten that out, and the casino in Des Plaines has yet to open.
If this bill gets passed it will take years to get the licenses up and running properly. Putting slots in the airport is ridiculous. Also creating a second gaming board to regulate the Chicago casino is dumb. What happens if the Chicago Gaming Board does something that is in conflict with the state’s Gaming Board? Which Gaming Board is right?
- steve schnorf - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 10:19 pm:
Rambler, what we are “spending” on pensions is an almost meaningless number. You need to focus on what current benefits cost us annually (one number) and what debt service costs on the money we have borrowed from the systems (a different number) and then look at what we are actually paying into the systems, a number that bears no relationship to the other two.
- Rambler - Monday, Nov 22, 10 @ 11:17 pm:
OK Steve.
So you’re saying that what we’re paying into the systems bears no relationship to what we’re paying out in current costs and debt service.
I’d say that kind of supports my point.
- Oh, Please! - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 10:00 am:
Yes, let’s cut prison expenses . . . but that can’t be done without sentencing reform and possibly modification to other laws, as well - especially drug laws. In adedition, let’s consolidate the plethora of government and quasi-governmental entities plaguing taxpayers of Illinois.
On the revenue side, let’s implement variable rate pricing on *all* existing highway capacity with the revenue dedicated to transit and highway capital/operating needs in the corridor where the money is collected. Investing in transit creates jobs, and not just temporary construction jobs.