When the COSTS exceed the REVENUES......

New Hampshire conducted an INDEPENDENT COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS that determined the COSTS would exceed the revenues.

How simple is that?

For additional information:
Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling

N.H. Speaker Norelli: Casino a four-sided issue

• Government Topics
• May 23, 2013
• By: Paul Briand

Democratic Rep. Terie Norelli of Portsmouth, as speaker of the New Hampshire House, has a unique view of her members from her elevated perch in the chamber.

She also has a unique view of the casino gambling issue that played out in Concord on Wednesday, with lawmakers voting 199-164 to agree with a House supercommittee recommendation to kill SB 152, the Senate-passed bill to allow a casino in the Granite State.

See the roll call breakdown here.

Norelli told me after the vote that the casino debate is not two-sided, but rather four-sided.
Based on what she saw and heard during Wednesday’s lengthy debate, here is how her fellow lawmakers fell on the issue of casino gambling:

• 1) Those who support gambling in all forms;
• 2) Those who oppose gambling in all forms;
• 3) Those who support gambling in a very particular form, such as state-run gambling or small gambling parlors throughout the state;
• 4) Those who would support gambling if there was a regulatory and enforcement structure in place.

While she remained neutral on the issue (and she did not cast a vote on the supercommittee recommendation), she said she puts herself in the fourth category.

She wished, as Democratic Rep. Marjorie Smith of Durham pointed out during the debate, that the state three years ago had spent the $250,000 to create the regulatory and enforcement infrastructure needed to oversee casino gambling.

As it was, SB 152 would have handed oversight to the state Lottery Commission, something that Smith didn’t think it was capable of doing.

The infrastructure was part of the recommendations of then Gov. John Lynch’s blue ribbon commission on casino gambling.

The “inexpedient to legislate” recommendation came from a special House panel that included all the members of the House Finance and Ways and Means committees.

The panel looked at the revenue, regulatory and social aspects related to SB 152. Its vote to kill the bill was 23.-22. It did consider a host of amendments offered by lawmakers as a way to fix parts of the bill they felt needed repair.

On Wednesday, if the House had voted to overturn the supercommittee recommendation, it would have launched into a discussion of the amendments.

The vote to concur with the recommendation had some interesting political divisions. Among the 199 that voted for the recommendation to kill the bill were 107 Republicans and 92 Democrats. Among the 164 lawmakers who wanted to move onto the next step of considering the amendments were 52 Republicans and 112 Democrats.

But it was not, as some might think, as much of a political issue as it was a philosophical issue about the kind of state New Hampshire wants to be and how it will go about funding its budget priorities.
House Minority Leader Pamela Tucker, Republican from Greenland, told me as much after the vote.
She opposed SB 152, saying: “I am pleased to see the House once again affirmed that we don’t need gambling in our state.”

But her opposition wasn’t political, it was philosophical and a reflection of what she said were her constituent’s concerns about casino gambling.

"We don't need it," she said. "It does nothing for the New Hampshire advantage."

For those who are wondering, that would put Tucker in category 2 from above.

Paul Briand is an editor with the Live Free or Die Alliance, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that encourages the discussion and analysis of New Hampshire politics and policies.


http://www.examiner.com/article/n-h-speaker-norelli-casino-a-four-sided-issue