Desperate times, goes the old saying, call for desperate measures. But before members of Congress push ahead with proposals that would legalize, and tax, online poker and other nonsports betting games, they must ask themselves whether the country's financial problems justify this degree of desperation. Even with huge federal budget deficits and a massive national debt, the answer should be no.
A bill approved by the House Financial Services Committee had bipartisan support, and the "pros" cited by a number of backers really boiled down to a single benefit: money. Estimates of federal revenues should such activities be taxed are put at $42 billion over the next 10 years. And supporters try to salve their argument by noting that many such gambling activities - Web-based casinos is one term used - are simply driven offshore anyway, where they operate outside the reach of the law. Why not grab that tax money by making them legal?
That was not the view in 2006, when lawmakers instituted a federal ban on such activities.
Money. That's the reason for the turnaround, and not just the tax money. Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama noted that lobbyists had spent "tens of millions" of dollars trying to get rid of that pesky bit of good lawmaking from 2006.
Then there was this. "After all the talk last year about shutting down casinos on Wall Street," the congressman said, he found it outrageous that Congress would vote "to open casinos in every home and every bedroom and every dorm room, and on every iPhone, every BlackBerry, every laptop."
North Carolina has heard all these same arguments in recent months, that the state would be passing up huge potential revenues were it to loosen the ban on video sweepstakes that was thankfully backed up by legislative leaders.
But consider the consequences of a national action: The government would be opening the doors in all states to more pressure for all sorts of gambling enterprises. It would be ignoring the catastrophe of gambling addictions.
There also is this practical financial consideration: If people choose to spend discretionary income on gambling, that is money unavailable to be spent elsewhere in the economy - to the merchants (who also pay taxes and employ people), to service providers. And there will be people who will spend their discretionary income and then some, endangering not just their futures but their here and now.
This is not, in other words, just about the money coming in. It's about big losses in many other ways. Nor should lawmakers simply say, "Well, it's out there and people do it anyway, so why not just give in?" We have speed limits and lines on the highways and laws against theft that people ignore all the time without getting caught. But we don't just take the lid off.
The action is fortunately far from becoming law, and there will have to be more hearings and more votes. Let us hope that in the course of that, someone thinks to ask, "Are we really this desperate?"
