Today, Alabama Policy Institute President Gary Palmer released the following statement regarding the public hearing on Senate Bill 380 and House Bill 507 which are pending in the Alabama State Legislature:
All the pollsters, politicians and pundits are asking the wrong question. The question really is not “should Alabama regulate and tax electronic ‘bingo’?” The question that should be asked is …”should Alabama encourage more public corruption, more deceitful election funding and more wasteful and abusive spending by the Legislature by legalizing bingo casinos?”
The effort to shut down electronic bingo is not about jobs or tax revenues or funding charities … it is about shutting down operations that are clearly illegal. And any legislation that would allow these operations to keep using the illegal machines is an attempt by the legislators who vote for it to reward illegal activity.
There is now no question that the electronic bingo machines are illegal. To argue that too many jobs will be lost if the illegal machines are removed from the bingo casinos and other gambling joints is to make a mockery of our laws. What if these gambling joints were meth labs or marijuana processing facilities that employed thousands of people and were bringing millions of dollars into the local community? Would we have legislators arguing against enforcing the law and shutting them down to save those jobs and keep the money coming in? Alabama is at a crossroads here … we either enforce the law or we undermine it.
Given that Alabama has the shameful distinction of being ranked fourth in the nation in public corruption, here is a question the people of Alabama should be asking themselves: “If we cave in to the powerful gambling syndicates behind the push for bingo casinos, will we have more public corruption or less? More deceitful election campaign funding or less? More wasteful and abusive spending by the State Legislature or less?” How we answer these questions should be a guide to whether or not we want to put Alabama under the thumb of gambling syndicates.
In regard to the promise that legalizing bingo casinos will bring Alabama a brighter future, all anyone has to do is look at Mississippi. Mississippi is covered with casinos, yet their per capita income has remained 50th among all states, their poverty rate is the highest in the nation and their gross state product is only about 60 percent of Alabama’s. Legalizing casinos has not brought a brighter future for the vast majority of Mississippians and it won’t for the people of Alabama.
Click here to view Gary Palmer’s Sunday column in the Mobile Press-Register.
Mr. Palmer will be available for interviews regarding this statement and position on gambling in Alabama. To schedule an interview, please call 205.870.9900.
Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.
Note: This column is a copyrighted feature distributed free of charge by the Alabama Policy Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and API are properly cited. For information or comments, contact Gary Palmer, Alabama Policy Institute, 402 Office Park Drive, Suite 300, Birmingham, Alabama 35223, (205) 870-9900, or email garyp@alabamapolicy.org. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this column, please email joannl@alabamapolicy.org.
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