California: Government Sponsored Addiction Instead of Sound Fiscal Policy

EDITORIAL: A heartless proposal
By North County Times and The Californian opinion staff North County Times


The fact that state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) is talking about legalizing online gambling in California is sad evidence of how far our elected officials will go to avoid tackling the structural flaws in our state's finances.

After a decade or so of granting unprecedented increases in pension and retirement benefits to public employees, the politicians in Sacramento are now looking at another method of increasing the state's intake on the backs of California's poor and middle class rather than addressing the growth in compensation to public employees.

Online gambling was originally banned for some very good reasons: Unscrupulous operators would have no incentive to help gambling addicts stop, and the existing real-world social impediments to such an addiction (having to travel to the casino, the casino operators' desire to be good corporate citizens, friends and family traveling with you) don't exist online. Experts in addiction have warned that the privacy inherent to online gambling is likely to exacerbate compulsive wagering.

But Steinberg is unmoved by such concerns, having recently been quoted as saying, "If there really is the potential for hundreds of millions of dollars ... then I'm open to it."

Like the proposed sales tax increase, or the state lottery, the "hundreds of millions" that has Steinberg and other politicians blinded to their moral responsibilities regarding online gambling would primarily come out of the pockets of the middle class and poor. It is a regressive form of public revenue in that those with the least to start with are being asked to contribute more.

In moderation, gambling can be a legitimate form of entertainment. Some folks look forward to their weekly movie and dinner, others spend their recreational funds on mountain biking, and yet others on travel. It's hard to see how budgeting a reasonable portion of your income for gambling in casinos is any different from other entertainment options ---- as long as the interests of those who become addicted to gambling (and their families) are taken into account.

But the checks and balances present in real-world gambling simply do not exist online. To blithely move forward with plans to legalize online gambling, simply to raise enough money to allow our politicians to avoid confronting the results of their profligate spending, is a heartless proposal that will only add misery to the lives of far too many Californians.