Illinois: The Folly of Poor Fiscal Management

Elsewhere are lengthy articles about the historical fiscal mismanagement of Illinois and their desperate financial plight. With high unemployment and no revenue stream to fund government, much less bond payments, desperation leads to folly and false solutions.

Statehouse Insider: Is a smaller gambling bill even possible?

Gov. PAT QUINN finally outlined his vision for an acceptable gambling expansion bill last week. It does not include slot machines at horse racing tracks.

Ultimately, he said, “it cannot be some kind of bill that passes to appease every single lobbyist in Springfield.”

Well, actually governor, when it comes to gambling expansion, pretty much every lobbyist has to be appeased. That army of lobbyists out there represents all of the various (and often competing) interests in the gambling expansion debate. If they all aren’t appeased to some degree, gambling expansion bills fall apart. That’s pretty much been the story with gambling expansion bills for years and years.

It is a classic example of the way Quinn operates. At its core, it is a populist idea. Let local communities decide whether or not they want to legalize gambling on video poker machines. And remember, the key word here is legalize it. The presumption is that wagering on these machines is going on anyway, it’s just under the table. Legalize it and the state has some control over it and also gets a share of the stakes.

That share of the stakes is why the state went down this path in the first place. Money from video poker machines is a key source of funding for that $30-plus billion capital plan that was passed with great fanfare a couple of years ago.

Requiring communities to opt-in to video gaming in all likelihood will dry up a significant part of that expected revenue. But populist Quinn never got around to saying how the state will make up that money that’s needed to pay off construction bonds. It was another case of saying the popular thing and not fully thinking out the consequences.