Politicians placing bets

COLUMN-Politicians placing bets: David Cay Johnston

By David Cay Johnston

March 30 (Reuters) - Politicians in both parties are betting that allowing more gambling will make them winners at the polls by raising revenue without appearing to raise taxes.

Governors Andrew Cuomo of New York and Steve Beshear of Kentucky, both Democrats, each want seven casinos.

In Kansas, where the state owns casinos, Governor Sam Brownback, a Republican, wants more gambling money to pay down state debts.

In Minnesota, Governor Mark Dayton of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party wants more gambling to finance a new stadium for the privately owned Vikings football team.

Florida legislators are mulling three casinos, one in Miami. Illinois lawmakers may allow a casino in Chicago.

In Texas, Governor Rick Perry says he opposes more gambling. Yet eight years ago he called the legislature into special session to allow gambling at the gas pumps to help finance schools (). He lost that bet.

Egging on these and other politicians is anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, who has made "tax" the vilest four-letter word in American politics. Norquist wrote Texas politicians a letter in January saying that more gambling is better than more taxes. ()

As a longtime student of gambling companies and their regulation, I find these developments troubling. People who want to play should have an honest place to wager. But states should only allow, not encourage, gambling. Basic government services should not depend on gambling revenue, as Perry's school finance proposal did.

No matter how much gambling the law allows, taxes on the money players lose will never be enough to finance the government services on which jobs and private wealth creation depend.


$24 BILLION IN 2010 REVENUES

Gambling generated $24 billion for the states in 2010, about 2 percent of their total revenues, data collected by the Rockefeller Institute of Government shows (). Thanks to its lottery, New York got the most gambling revenue, $2.7 billion, more than Nevada and New Jersey combined.

Tax revenues from gambling are down in both West and East Mammonopolis, in part because of a weak economy. In the west, Nevada gamblers lost $3.8 billion last year, down 12 percent in real terms from 2000, according to the University of Nevada (). In the east, Atlantic City players lost $3.3 billion last year, down 39 percent from their inflation-adjusted loss of $5.4 billion in 2001, according to the state of New Jersey. The only growth is in betting near home, which the industry calls "convenience play." Slot machines took more money from players in Pennsylvania than Atlantic City last year.

Nelson Rose, the Whittier College law professor who developed the theory that America is riding its third historic wave of gambling, says, "we are decades away from market saturation" for convenience gambling.

The first two gambling waves ended in scandals, the first between 1820 and 1840 because of dishonest games, the second in 1890 because the nationwide Louisiana Lottery corrupted politicians.

While the third wave has yet to crest, a potential new scandal lurks in proposals to initiate legal online betting.

The U.S. Justice Department issued a formal opinion in December that the Wire Act, a law long-thought to bar Internet gambling, applies only to sports betting. ()

This means that states running the Powerball and Megamillions lotteries can operate multistate online poker and other Internet betting.

But how will states know if online players are adults? My 1992 book "Temples of Chance" named 13- and 14-year-old children who Atlantic City casinos plied with liquor, limousines and luxury suites. How will the states keep underage gamblers using their own money -- or Mom and Dad's credit cards -- from online poker?


WHO BENEFITS?

Another issue is who benefits from more gambling and who may be maneuvered into supporting it. Consider the way Cuomo has framed a casino expansion proposal.

New York has nine racetracks with slot machines, called racinos. By proposing only seven casino licenses, Cuomo initiated a variation on musical chairs, where two or more operators will end up without a license when the music stops. Want to bet whether this approach encourages political donations and quiet favors?

The giant Asian gambling company Genting Group won the contract for the Aqueduct racino in Queens last year. Now, Cuomo has tapped Genting to build the nation's largest convention center there, which it says it will do without subsidies.

I doubt many people would fly to New York to visit mundane Ozone Park, an hour's subway ride from Manhattan's Broadway shows, Fifth Avenue shopping and Times Square.

At the same time, Cuomo is proposing to close the Javits convention center in the heart of the city, alarming Manhattan hotel and restaurant owners, as it should.

Now let's connect the dots.

Genting would make more money if instead of a convention hall in Ozone Park it erects a large open space for a full-blown casino with baccarat, blackjack, craps, pai gow and poker. But a casino requires legislative and voter approval, which may not be easy to get.

Cuomo, by threatening to close the Javits center, has given Manhattan hotel and restaurant operators an interest in persuading state legislators and voters to make sure Ozone Park becomes a huge casino complex and Javits stays open. That way their income from Manhattan conventioneers would not be at risk.

I find it most curious that any politician trying to avoid tax increases would consider a casino operator whose profits will go to Malaysia instead of staying in-state.

People in New York, and elsewhere, should ask: What value do offshore casino operators add? Why not license American gaming companies? Or local investors? What motivated Cuomo to shun Indian casino operators, like the Oneida Nation with its well-run Turning Stone casino near Syracuse?

And all Americans should ask what the odds are that more gambling will promote an industrious, thrifty society. And does it make sense for your tax savings to depend on how many of your neighbors make a losing toss of the dice?

The "License to Steal Stupid People's Money" bill

Gov. Scott's lust for casinos a bad bet
Stephen Goldstein
Columnist

Wake up, Floridians! You're about to be "had."

Tea Party/GOP Gov. Rick Scott and other proponents of expanding gambling in the state are just as bad as Ponzi-schemer Scott Rothstein, maybe worse. Their con is pitching that casinos, more lottery options, slots, roulette, and similar immoral games to take people's money will flood the state with billions of investment dollars, tens of thousands of high-paying jobs, hoards of high-roller (especially rich, foreign) tourists, and buyers of expensive condos. Gambling proponents tout (especially South) Florida as a natural rival to Las Vegas.

But, if casinos are such a panacea for the economy, why is Nevada's one of the worst in the nation? In the end, everyone knows that only the house always wins. The public will get stuck holding the bag and paying for infrastructure and other costs from which casinos, developers and other businesses will be exempted. (That's the way things work in Florida.)

Most of the jobs created will be low-wage, unless casino-owners suddenly grant chamber maids and valet car-parkers stock options. And the state will lose the little that's left of its moral compass by getting in bed with gaming.

When he ran for office, Scott promised he wouldn't stoop to making state finances dependent upon gambling. A former CEO, he claimed he was uniquely qualified to create "jobs, jobs, jobs" and get the economy out of the tank. He said "Let's get to work" more times than Herman Cain chanted 9-9-9 or denied he sexually harassed anyone. A razor slim majority of voters overlooked Scott's shady past as a "successful" businessman and put our future in his hands.

Now, the guv is saying that because the state already has gambling, he's open to allowing Vegaslike casinos. Pants on fire! In fact, expanded casino gambling has always been on his radar. Just two weeks after his election, he made a stealth visit to Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands and other casinos, when they discussed something other than desert flora and fauna, I suspect. Scott has just been waiting for the right time to make a move.

Now, on the pretense of saving the economy, he's acting out of personal desperation.

After a full year in office, the guv is failing: Our economy ain't goin' anywhere, and "tricky Rick" is trying to save his political skin by gambling on gambling to create all those jobs he promised and to make up budget deficits. But what tangled webs he weaves, when the governor deceives.

Last year, in his first budget, he went back on his promise to not decrease education funding. This year, he's going back on his pledge to not expand gambling to undo some of the damage from his going back on his promise to not decrease education funding.

To raise more money for schools, he wants to increase the number of retailers selling (the disproportionately high number of losing) lottery tickets and to add more machines where you can buy them. By the time he's through, you'll probably be able to gamble in church and on every street corner — or wager intravenously. And odds are, he'll soon want a game named after him: the "Scott Pot."

Any proposed legislation to create resort destination casinos should be called the "License to Steal Stupid People's Money" bill — and should be defeated. Any elected official who votes for it should resign or be impeached. Like other Grover Norquist lapdogs, the governor and much of the Florida Legislature signed a pledge never to raise taxes. But they have no pangs of conscience about encouraging people to bet (aka throw their money away) on anything, at anytime, anywhere, even though the odds are overwhelmingly against them.

Florida needs to attract world-class business and industry with long-term growth potential to put its economy on a solid footing. Gambling is not a substitute for sound fiscal policy and economic development. Government should not depend upon a craps shoot or leadership upon the roll of the dice.

Grover Norquist's Culture of Corruption

Grover Norquist's Culture of Corruption

Grover Norquist is once again playing kingmaker, determining not just the direction of the Republican Party but of the entire US economy. His anti-tax zealotry has made it virtually impossible for Republicans to cut a sensible deal to raise the debt ceiling. But just yesterday, Norquist seemingly flip-flopped and said that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts would not violate his anti-tax pledge, leaving the door open to Republicans supporting a “grand bargain” deal to cut spending, lower corporate taxes and restructure Social Security and Medicare, which sounds like an awfully good offer for the GOP (for Democrats, not so much). The White House is using Norquist to bolster its case while every reporter in Washington is amplifying his words. Norquist has since walked his original statement back.

I’ve got another question: who cares what Norquist says and why does he still have any credibility left? Just a few years ago he was a central player in the Jack Abramoff scandal, using his connections to launder nearly $1 million from Abramoff’s Indian tribe clients to conservative activist Ralph Reed and Christian anti-gambling groups who were fighting a proposed state lottery in Alabama, according to an extensive report by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

“Call Ralph re Grover doing pass through,” Abramoff wrote in an e-mail reminder to himself in 1999. In return, Norquist’s organization, Americans for Tax Return (ATR), took a piece of the cut. “What is the status of the Choctaw stuff?” Norquist wrote to Abramoff that same year. “I have a 75g hole in my budget from last year. ouch.”

According to the New York Times:

Indian tribes say Mr. Abramoff dropped Mr. Norquist’s name when he began trying to win their business. Mr. Norquist used his platform to argue against taxing Indian gambling. Mr. Abramoff billed the tribes tens of millions of dollars to try to fend off antigambling groups and regulators and to send members of Congress on lavish overseas trips. The tribes say Mr. Abramoff also instructed them to give money to Mr. Norquist’s groups as way of getting an audience with the Bush administration. The tribes gave $1.5 million to Americans for Tax Reform and $250,000 to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, the group founded by Mr. Norquist and Ms. [Gail] Norton.

Adds The New Yorker:

At the start of 2000, the casino battle intensified. Reed needed more cash, and the Choctaws agreed to supply some. After discussing several options, Reed and Abramoff again decided to send the money via Norquist, but this time, apparently, he kept some of it for Americans for Tax Reform. “I need to give Grover something for helping, so the first transfer will be a bit lighter,” Abramoff wrote to Reed on February 7, 2000.

Ten days later, Abramoff sent another e-mail to Reed: “ATR will be sending a second $300K today. How much more do we need? We can’t lose this.” Once again, Americans for Tax Reform apparently took a cut of the money, prompting Abramoff to write to himself a few days later: “Grover kept another $25K!”

The committee also released correspondence relating to a meeting that Norquist helped organize in May, 2001, at which some of Abramoff’s Indian clients met with President Bush. On April 5th, Abramoff wrote to Norquist, “Here’s the first of the checks for the tax event at the White House. I’ll have another $25K shortly.” Sixteen months later, on August 12, 2002, Abramoff wrote to an official with the Saginaw Chippewas, another of his client tribes, “Last year Grover set a meeting for certain select tribal leaders (Coushatta and Chitimach were the only ones) and the speakers of the house of several legislatures to meet with the President in a small meeting for photos, etc. The tribes paid for the event (total cost was $100K for the entire thing, and each tribe put in $50K). Grover has asked me to line up a few tribes to do so again.”

Joked Mark Salter, a top aide to John McCain: “By his own admission, Grover couldn’t be any closer to Abramoff if they moved to Massachussetts and got married.” The Weekly Standard pointed to Reed and Norquist as “symbols of how onetime anti-Washington political insurgents traded in their idealism for gobs of corporate cash.”

All three were key figures in the Bush-era “culture of corruption.” Abramoff went to prison in 2006 for conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion. He got out in December 2010, right after Republicans recaptured the House and Norquist’s anti-tax agenda received a major boost. Abramoff’s reputation is still in tatters. Norquist’s should be too.

—Ari Berman is the author of Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics.

The new Gilded Age

The unfolding saga of Abramoff's corrupt dealings couldn't have been concocted by a gifted fiction writer, yet here we are, with a front row seat watching Beacon Hill prostitute itself for gilt that's really Fool's Gold.

A close-up look at the new Gilded Age

So here we are. 140 years ago the money that bought Congress was from railroads, iron and steel. Now it's from casinos and sweatshops, health insurance companies, and Wall Street. Thanks to the five Republican appointees on the Supreme Court it's now as unregulated as it was then. Honestly, I didn't think of myself as an innocent political virgin but I didn't grasp until seeing this movie just how bad it was. For the time being, it seems, we're sunk.

The Cuts Are Coming

The Cuts Are Coming

“Casino Jack,” the movie about crooked lobbyist Jack Abramoff, portrayed anti-tax demagogue Grover Norquist as just another member of the Washington fixer’s club. But the filmmakers greatly underestimated him.

Abramoff went off to prison while Norquist, who heads Americans for Tax Reform, has stayed around to twist the arms of legislators in every state in an effort to make them sign no-tax-increase pledges. Those pledges, if honored, would result in reductions in already dwindling appropriations for education and social welfare programs and many other needed services in states with huge deficits. “My goal,” Norquist famously said, “is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

He started Americans for Tax Reform during the Reagan administration. Later, he was a leading strategist of Republican Newt Gingrich’s takeover of the House in 1994. Over the years, Americans for Tax Reform has become the nation’s most effective anti-tax organization.

There’s an angry self-righteousness about the movement. Its members seem to see themselves as doing God’s work while the rest of us are sinners, especially the sinner-in-chief in the White House. But as Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

And sin—if it is a sin to betray the public trust—is part of the Abramoff-Norquist story, as told in “Casino Jack.” What’s in the film is backed up by documents and news stories about the days, some 15 years ago, when the two men and their cohort were flying high, along with another collaborator, Ralph Reed, who was head of the right-wing Christian Coalition.

Abramoff, played in the film by Kevin Spacey, was known as Casino Jack for his highly expensive lobbying on behalf of Indian tribes involved in gambling enterprises. He was lobbying against lotteries and casinos that would have been competition for his clients.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee said in 2006 that Americans for Tax Reform had been a “conduit” for funds that flowed from Abramoff’s clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi reported in The Washington Post that “as the money passed through, Norquist’s organization kept a small cut, e-mails show.” Norquist also moved more than $1 milllion from Abramoff clients to Reed, then an influential fundamentalist Christian organizer. “Reed was working to defeat lotteries and casinos that would have competed with Abramoff’s tribal and Internet clients,” the reporters wrote. It would, of course, look better to the public if the money came from Christian and anti-tax groups rather than gambling interests.

Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. Norquist told the Post that Americans for Tax Reform worked with Abramoff’s gambling clients because they shared anti-tax, anti-regulatory views. He said his organization was not used to conceal the source of funds sent to Reed. Reed said he hadn’t known the money originated from Indian casinos.

Norquist and Reed moved on with their careers. Norquist’s best-known activity is pressing officeholders and candidates to make a “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” to voters—a promise to “oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.”

Tea party influence in Republican primaries makes this a powerful threat to some politicians. In November, the Republicans won a majority of the nation’s legislative seats. The elections produced the biggest Republican statehouse majority since 1928, according to Stateline.org, published by the Pew Center on the States. This means that state governments in big and small states will be heavily influenced if not controlled by uncompromising signers of the Norquist pledge, all of them frightened by the prospect of Norquist-led tea party opposition in their next primary election.

This uncompromising politics leaves states with deficits only one alternative—to sharply cut money for medical aid to the poor, education, law enforcement and many other services. In California, the Republicans in the Legislature won’t even support Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal for legislation that would submit to a popular vote a tax increase to help eliminate a $28 billion budget deficit. Although Democrats control the Legislature, they need Republicans for the two-thirds majority required for passage of the legislation.

This is happening in the state where a popular-vote approval of Proposition 13 in 1978 started the anti-tax movement. I asked John Kartch, communications director for Americans for Tax Reform, about this contradiction in which the anti-taxers now oppose the California Legislature authorizing a popular vote after they supported one in 1978. Kartch, in an e-mail, said Brown should gather enough signatures for a voter initiative putting the measures on the ballot without involving the Legislature. “ATR’s position is that Gov. Brown should not be forcing legislators to do his dirty work, making many of them break their central campaign commitment to constituents in the process,” he said.

That uncompromising attitude in legislatures all over the country will result in great hardship to those dependent on our government’s safety net. The Grover Norquist who was willing to wheel and deal with Jack Abramoff shows no compromise when it comes to inflicting misery on millions of people.

Let's ship jobs overseas......

and then we'll need the low wage jobs offered by Slot Barns!

And there's always a "Jack Abramoff connection" as FREDERICA CADE reminds.


New List of Your States Signers signed to Grover Norquist, Controversial Americans For Tax Reform Pledge

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. Grover Norquist group American for Tax Reform and the United State Commerce both oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.
“Chamber president Thomas Donohue has turned the organization into a key ally of the Bush-era corporate agenda that has empowered Big Business at the expense of workers. The Chamber has made opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act its top priority.” http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/against_list.cfm
Alliance for Worker Freedom is an arm of American for Tax Reform. American for Tax Reform is a group that seeks to limit the federal government’s ability to protect workers and consumers and ensure economic fairness.
“We’re going to crush labor as a political entity.” –Grover Norquist, founder and president of ATR http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/against_list.cfm
American Tax Reform is a group that opposes all taxes and promotes limited government. Grover Norquist, President has a questionable history with this group. ATR group calls themself a 501 (c)(4) group. This means they are a non-profit lobbyist organization in which all donations made to the group are considered tax-deductible but wait a second the The Americans for Tax Reform Foundation is a 501(c)(3). Supposedly under 501(c)(3).
The ATR Foundation is used for research and educational organization, and all contributions to the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation are tax-deductible as allowed by federal laws.
Americans for Tax Reform’s mission statement: “ATR opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle. We believe in a system in which taxes are simpler, fairer, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today. The government’s power to control one’s life derives from its power to tax. We believe that power should be minimized… ATR serves as a national clearinghouse for the grassroots taxpayers’ movement by working with approximately 800 state and county level groups.”
Would you be surprised that I could find very little on the American Tax Reform Foundation. Well I did find a complaint: Norquist used either or both ATR and ATR Foundation as commercial enterprises by laundering money derived from Indian casino clients of former lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff. The casinos made contributions to ATR, which then skimmed a fee off the top before passing the money on to former Christian activist Ralph Reed and other anti-gambling activists. In this way, Norquist, Reed and Abramoff were able to disguise the fact that the money used to fund anti-gambling activities was generated through Indian gambling. The point of the anti-gambling campaigns was to prevent competition to the Indian casinos.

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/19054

Americans For Tax Reform Pledge, Which Requires Signers To
Vote Against Tax Increases. [Americans For Tax Reform, Accessed 10/8/10]
2010 Vote To Close Tax Loopholes For Companies That Ship Jobs Overseas Seen
As Violation Of Pledge. Signers of ATR’s Pledge are Committed to Supporting
Tax Breaks for Companies Outsourcing American Jobs. Americans for Tax
Reform has stated that it is a violation of their pledge to support ending
tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas. [Americans for Tax
Reform, 8/9/10; Washington Post, 8/5/10; Washington Post, 6/9/10]
2007 Vote To Close Tax Loopholes For Countries Shipping Jobs Overseas Seen
As Violation Of The Pledge. In 2007, the Americans for Tax Reform issued a
legislative alert making it clear to their pledge signers that if they voted
to remove a tax loophole taken by companies that ship jobs overseas it would
be “a clear and unambiguous violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”
[ATR Legislative Alert, 7/25/07]

2011 STATE LEGISLATIVE SIGNERS OF THE
TAXPAYER PROTECTION PLEDGE*List does not include signers from states not yet reporting election results:
***
Previously the last update was on November 17, 2010 with the state of Mississippi and New York were still missing. As of December 15, those two states are listed on Grover Norquist’s tax pledge with also more individuals added onto different states.

The previous count was 1,187 Legislators as of Wednesday, November 17, 2010, and now as of December 15, 2010 that number has now increased to 1,285.

2011 STATE LEGISLATIVE SIGNERS OF THE
TAXPAYER PROTECTION PLEDGE
1,285 Legislators as of Wednesday, December 15, 2010
(Signers are listed alphabetically within respective chamber)

[Only Massachusetts listed here. Go to link for full list.]
MASSACHUSETTS
1 Senator of 40
Robert Hedlund (S-Plym. &
Norf.)
17 House members of 160
Demetrius John Atsalis (Barnst.-2)
Fred “Jay” Barrows (Brist.-1)
Paul K. Frost (Worc.-7)
Susan Williams Gifford (Plym.-2)
Brad Hill (Essex-4)
Donald Humason (Hamp.-4)
Vinnie de Macedo (Plym.-1)
David Nangle (Middl.-17)
Elizabeth A. Poirier (Brist.-14)
Todd Smola (Hamp.-1)
Richard Ross (S-Norfolk, Bristol, &
Middlesex)
Paul Adams (H-17 Essex)
Geoffrey Diehl (H-7 Plymouth)
Kim Ferguson (H-1 Worcester)
Steven Howitt (H-4 Bristol)
Randy Hunt (H-5 Barnstable)
Marc Lombardo (H-22 Middlesex)

Always the sleazy "Abramoff" connection

The most recent Beacon Hill Folly into Gambling was preceded by the Jack Amramoff's sleazy deals, government for sale at bargain basement prices and a whole mindset filled with policies that disadvantage American workers.

These comments seemed pretty interesting and make some interesting connections --

List of Your Republicans Leaders in the new 112th Congress sign to Grover Norquist’s

Controversial Americans For Tax Reform Pledge

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. Grover Norquist group American for Tax Reform and the United State Commerce both oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.
“Chamber president Thomas Donohue has turned the organization into a key ally of the Bush-era corporate agenda that has empowered Big Business at the expense of workers. The Chamber has made opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act its top priority.” http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/against_list.cfm

Alliance for Worker Freedom is an arm of American for Tax Reform. American for Tax Reform is a group that seeks to limit the federal government’s ability to protect workers and consumers and ensure economic fairness.

“We’re going to crush labor as a political entity.” –Grover Norquist, founder and president of ATR http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/against_list.cfm

American Tax Reform is a group that opposes all taxes and promotes limited government. Grover Norquist, President has a questionable history with this group. ATR group calls themself a 501 (c)(4) group. This means they are a non-profit lobbyist organization in which all donations made to the group are considered tax-deductible but wait a second the The Americans for Tax Reform Foundation is a 501(c)(3). Supposedly under 501(c)(3).

The ATR Foundation is used for research and educational organization, and all contributions to the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation are tax-deductible as allowed by federal laws.
Americans for Tax Reform’s mission statement: “ATR opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle. We believe in a system in which taxes are simpler, fairer, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today. The government’s power to control one’s life derives from its power to tax. We believe that power should be minimized… ATR serves as a national clearinghouse for the grassroots taxpayers’ movement by working with approximately 800 state and county level groups.”

Would you be surprised that I could find very little on the American Tax Reform Foundation. Well I did find a complaint: Norquist used either or both ATR and ATR Foundation as commercial enterprises by laundering money derived from Indian casino clients of former lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff. The casinos made contributions to ATR, which then skimmed a fee off the top before passing the money on to former Christian activist Ralph Reed and other anti-gambling activists. In this way, Norquist, Reed and Abramoff were able to disguise the fact that the money used to fund anti-gambling activities was generated through Indian gambling. The point of the anti-gambling campaigns was to prevent competition to the Indian casinos.

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/19054

Americans For Tax Reform Pledge, Which Requires Signers To
Vote Against Tax Increases. [Americans For Tax Reform, Accessed 10/8/10]
2010 Vote To Close Tax Loopholes For Companies That Ship Jobs Overseas Seen
As Violation Of Pledge. Signers of ATR’s Pledge are Committed to Supporting
Tax Breaks for Companies Outsourcing American Jobs. Americans for Tax
Reform has stated that it is a violation of their pledge to support ending
tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas. [Americans for Tax
Reform, 8/9/10; Washington Post, 8/5/10; Washington Post, 6/9/10]
2007 Vote To Close Tax Loopholes For Countries Shipping Jobs Overseas Seen
As Violation Of The Pledge. In 2007, the Americans for Tax Reform issued a
legislative alert making it clear to their pledge signers that if they voted
to remove a tax loophole taken by companies that ship jobs overseas it would
be “a clear and unambiguous violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”
[ATR Legislative Alert, 7/25/07]

The Taxpayer Protection Pledge Signers
112th Congressional List


235 Representatives and 41 Senators

(click the link to review the list)