The Great Gadfly

If Glenn Marshall is the Wampanoag Judas, what do we call the governor?

Governor What’s His Name

By Peter Kenney

While Governor Deval Patrick's opposition to the Mashpee Wampanoag federal land trust application may make him the Deval Custer of Mashpee history, what do the rest of us call him for the deals he is making behind our backs to gain legislative support for his gambling bill? “Judas” seems to fit the bill, and I do mean bill.

There is no such thing as a legislator who will change his vote from one opposing the governor to one helping him without some sort of reward, bribe, gratuity, pork-barrel project or favor. A simple kiss on the fanny will not do. The problem is that the cost of these arrangements is never paid out of the governor's personal funds but ours...the citizens of Massachusetts. How much has it cost us to help the governor convince fifteen state legislators to support his gambling bill?

After all, this is Massachusetts

We know that the governor -- Custer or Judas -- whatever his name is -- has already included hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipated gambling proceeds in next year's budget. The fact that these revenues are nowhere in sight at the time the budget is cast seems to trouble no one. After all, this is Massachusetts.

The most likely chain of events is that Judas expects to be able to get the legislature to pass his gambling bill this spring. Then there will be a flood of $400 million or more paid to the state by two or three applicants for casino licenses. BINGO...$400 million or more...just as Judas promised. But, the crapshoot goes on to even higher stakes.

It is good to be king

Once our normally restrained and thrifty legislators saw the budget projections Judas waived under their noses, once he showed them a loading dock crammed with unopened pork barrels and let them smell all that fresh meat, they did the only respectable thing and started caving to their various constituencies.

Local schools and public works projects, jobs programs for out-of-work hacks, guarantees of thousands of new union jobs so that union members could pay millions more in dues to their leaders who could then “re-invest” all that hard-earned money to support the right kinds of candidates. WOW...what's not to like? So, fifteen members of the legislature -- according to whoever counts the pieces of silver on Beacon Hill -- have come around to the governor's way of thinking, again. It is good to be king.

Cue the floodgates!

There is not one casino application yet, because there is no gambling law yet; there is not one dime of taxes from a casino because there are no casinos yet; there is not one union construction job or service job in a casino yet because there is no gambling bill, no gambling applications and no casinos.

But, already there are programs to be funded and hacks to be hired to manage those programs and it will all work out just fine because there will be a gambling bill and its passage will open the floodgates of casino applications and each one will be accompanied by a treasurer's check for at least $100 million. WHEW!

Deval – he’s biting off more than WE can chew

Now, since the approval process will take some time and since it will take much longer than a year to build a casino and start the river of cash flowing to Beacon Hill, how will we support the expenditures Judas has projected for the next three or four years, the period between now and whenever the casinos commence operations? Simple. We will cook the books again next year and the year after that -- maybe lay off some more folks at the Registry or in the courts.

Silly me. That's next year. Why worry? Is it even polite to suggest that, once again, the Governor has bitten off more than we can chew?

Hey, kiss ME first

Hey, Judas...next time kiss me first. What I want to know is how badly did the man with the Harvard Law degree sell us out this time?

Remember, while he was somewhere else doing other things we were all here celebrating the success of the sales tax that cured our fiscal crisis...or was it the state lottery?

The sales tax was passed as a "temporary" 3 percent tax...and it was temporary. It quickly jumped to 5 percent where it has stayed. What a hangover that victory party caused.

A novel solution -- smoke 'em if ya got 'em

My solution for the state is to use $200 million of Judas's anticipated $400 million in casino application fees to advertise the benefits of cigarette smoking. Then, add two bucks to the price of every pack of cigarettes; require smoking by state employees and all police officers standing in the road on a detail; institute a mandatory hiring policy for private employers that requires every third person hired to smoke at least one pack a day; and levy a poverty tax of 5 percent on every thousand dollars a Massachusetts worker earns BELOW $25,000.

Look, Judas, if you are going to screw the people, let's really let 'em have it. You can hang yourself later.

Got a butt...?