Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Great Minds

Fester weights in against slot machines in Pennsylvania, and unlike me, actually employs facts to back up his argument.

On another note, I stumbled across a great old movie while watching TV Saturday night: "The Best Years of Our Lives," which is about three World War II veterans struggling to readjust to civilian life. It garnered seven Academy Awards in 1946, including Best Picture.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm, I found Fester's article a little lacking in detail. It just referenced three PG articles. I found this detailed article in the TR describing how 5%, up to $150M, of the gross revenue from slots will pay for a $2B "economic development" bond. (Ya, right.) This is separate from the $2B "economic stimulus" package.

Area may get $400M from slots
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_200992.html

Since Fester poo-poos the TR, I figured the missing details would be interesting.

I have no dog in this fight. Slots are a negative EV game, and they did not legalize poker. So, I continue my tour of all the poker rooms in North America.

4:58 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is an enlightening article from the Philly Inquirer (Imagine, someone from PIT reading a PHL newspaper. The scandal.)) on how a bill gets rushed through in PA.

Slots bill bypassed the usual procedures
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/9102134.htm

From one page to one hundred and forty six pages. Nice. If you want to read the actual bill ...

House Bill 2330
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/ALL/2003//0//HB2330.HTM

5:16 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't think anybody has mentioned that the property tax "reduction" is depends on an increase in local income tax!

Of course, the rebate depends on how many people apply for it, but I figure I will lose 1/2 to 3/4 of the exclusion because of the tax increase on our combined income.

I wonder they have though what happens when the baby boom starts to retire, in the next 10 years, or so, and income tax revenue declines? Will they just jack up the income tax further, driving more people out of PA? Or raise the property taxes back up, making the large retired community annoyed?

New Pa. law plays seesaw with suburban taxeshttp://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/9093457.htm

Tax-break questions, answers http://www.pennlive.com/statehouse/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/108901921588900.xml

5:42 PM

 
Blogger fester said...

Anon: you are right, my post at Fester's Place is not hyper specific and I mainly referenced articles. My intention, that I evidently did not do a good enough job of expressing, was that the state is treating the casino money as fundamentally found money and wishlist fullfillment money although it has not even arrived yet, and I also believe will be significantly lower than the most optimistic projections.

7:50 AM

 

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