LIVE STREAMING

Tax on hope

MÁS EN ESTA SECCIÓN

Fighting Sargassum

Community Colleges

COMPARTA ESTE CONTENIDO:

A monument to wishful thinking, lottery or any sort of gambling always proves to be far more than just the fixed price for bidding for the elusive chance to win; it results in certain loss along with decay.

No doubt, people are told that all proceeds or a fraction of them will be used for beneficence; “a good cause” will warrant a free pass into the paradise of gambling, a license to kill of sorts because of all the “good business” it supposedly yields.

Four years after the enactment of law 71 legalizing gambling in Pennsylvania and the resulting issuance of licenses for casinos and we find the political, business and judicial establishments in a furious scramble to capitalize on this “promising” enterprise.

When city officials attempted to poll its citizens regarding a prohibition forbidding casinos to build within less than 1,500 feet of residential neighborhoods by including the issue in the ballots on the 2007 primaries, a zealous state Supreme Court squashed the effort in April 2007, and the opportunity was lost.

Months later the same state Supreme Court in December 3, 2007 voted 6 to 1 ordering the city of Philadelphia to issue a zoning license to the SugarHouse casino, divesting the city of any authority to interfere with the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

Interestingly last May the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania sued the ex president of the state Supreme Court for negotiating an increase in salary with state legislators in exchange of “facilitating” the process of approval of casinos.
Right besides civic organizations two studies, one from Temple University and another from a consulting firm affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, express very plainly that the gambling business, is not that altogether innocent and that the impact in the city is indeed altogether negative listing all the social malaises typically stemming from addictions be it alcoholism, drug addiction and yes, gambling: crime, unemployment, disease, bankruptcy, and suicide.

Why could something so innocent as “taxing hope” stir up such contention, along with conflict of interests and corruption?   We are just left to wonder.

00:00 / 00:00
Ads destiny link