NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans' mayor on Friday proposed building a casino
zone near the historic French Quarter to jump start the hurricane-ravaged city's economy, saying a bold move was needed to restore lost tax revenue."I'd like to have another solution for the citizens ... but I don't know what else we can do at this point," Ray Nagin told a news conference.
New Orleans is struggling to rebound from Hurricane Katrina in August which fractured flood walls and flooded 80 percent of the city. Hurricane Rita hit the Gulf Coast on September 24, triggering renewed flooding in parts of the city.
Under Nagin's proposal, a U-shaped section encompassing several blocks of the city's downtown area would allow large hotels to covert part of their property into Las Vegas-style casinos.
He's got to be kidding, right?
Isn't that just what the people of New Orleans need right now? After they've lost everything they own, and the government stepped in and literally handed them free money so they could get their lives back together?
We've all heard the stories of the many poor who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina using the debit cards that were given to them to buy expensive clothes and designer handbags and blowing their money in strip clubs, etc.
And now that they've wasted most of the money, Mayor Nagin wants to make sure they waste the rest of it. How did this man ever convince the people of New Orleans to elect him as their Mayor?
Voodoo?
Gambling doesn't help anyone. It ruins lives. It ruins families. It creates poverty and depression and directly contributes to higher crime rates.
I have two first hand experiences to relate here:
1. My ex-wife developed a gambling habit after her boss took his staff to one of the casino boats on the Missouri river one time. She won about 50 dollars and that was all it took to get her hooked. After that, she looked for every opportunity to get away and gamble her hard earned money away. One evening she asked me for 50 dollars, but didn't want to tell me why she wanted it. But I knew. I told her, "Why don't you take this 50 dollars and go upstairs to the bathroom and throw it into the toilet and flush it? That way, you won't have to waste the time and gasoline along with the money."
That angered her, and she stalked out of the house, only to came back in a few hours penniless, as usual. I don't know how much money she eventually threw away, vainly trying for instant riches.
2. I was in a pawn shop in Kansas City, Kansas, looking at stereos to purchase for my daughter, and a woman came in carrying two shotgun cases. Apparently she was a regular because the clerk asked her, "Dave been to the boats again?"
I'll never forget the look on her face as she nodded in response. She looked like someone who was clinging desperately to the last vestiges of dignity. She pawned her husbands shotguns, explaining that her husband had gambled away the rent money. She had to come up with something or lose the house.
And the State of Kansas had created this problem under the guise that it would be good for the state, would help improve public schools and improve the deteriorating roads. All the time I lived in Kansas City, I never noticed any appreciable improvement in either the roads or the schools, but I noticed the local politicians were living pretty good.
Gambling does indeed create revenue, but for whom? And at what price?
That is a rhetorical question. I think we all know the answer.
4 comments:
Expect the New Orleans mayor to use the recent SCOTUS decision of eminent domain to displace more of the citizens not already displaced by the hurricaine.
In NJ they promised Atlantic City would no longer have its blighted areas & the casino revenue taxes would go far to help the poor, if only casinos were voted in. Well, I haven't seen any change for the poor down there. It is all a sham. Only politicians on the take & the ones with vested interests are reaping the rewards of casinos.
If only you vote for a lottery...if only you vote for a sales tax...if only you vote for a state income tax...blah, blah, blah. And the state is still poor-mouthing it & still in the red. The states & Federal government are full of corrupt, tax-dollar stealing pigs. $235 million for a bridge connecting an island of 50 to a town of 8,000, in Alaska of all places. Mutliply this sweet heart deal 10,000 fold nationwide: untold billions are porked out or stolen from increased taxes & gambling revenues.
If states can't get along with the sales tax, income tax, lottey, & casinos, one wonders how they managed for the past 200 yrs. The system is hopelessly corrupt & broke - and all on the backs of the tax-payers, who, incidentally, are only 40 percent of those who produce an income - meaning that 60 percent who produce income pay no taxes & some even get money even though they paid no taxes.
Casinos, huh? Well, I guess that’s one way of doing it, although if I wanted a gambling holiday I don’t know what would attract me to downtown New Orleans instead of the unrestrained glitz of Las Vegas or the perceived style of a riverboat casino.
A better (and faster) bet might be to turn the effects of the hurricane disaster itself into a tourist attraction; there are lots of people who have a prurient desire to see disaster and devastation, so cash-in on that. Visit the repaired levies, visit that area the city left un-repaired so that visitors can see the mud filling the rooms and the high-water mark in the bedroom and the SUV in the tree outside. You could even sell them the detritus you need to clear away as souvenirs!
You’d make a mint!
They are trying to put another Indian Casino near me. I am against it as they invariably hurt the communities they were meant to help. This a poor blighted area and the las thing they need is another casino nearby to lose their hard earned gains. The people I see in these places definately do not need to be in a casino. And the people I see playing the lottery here are all poor. I don't see businessmen in quickmarts blocking checkout aisles as they spend my taxdollars on scratchers,scumbag tweekers.
ROFL Stuck on Stupid!
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