John Baer: In search for $$, guv spreads a wide net
MAYBE WE should change our name from the Keystone State to the Brimstone State. Maybe we should start converting all those chicken farms in Lancaster County to Nevada-style chicken ranches.
MAYBE WE should change our name from the Keystone State to the Brimstone State.
Maybe we should start converting all those chicken farms in Lancaster County to Nevada-style chicken ranches.
How about changing Kennett Square from the mushroom capital to the marijuana capital?
The way things are going, all state government soon could be funded by vices, and, face it, the more vice we spread, the more money we get.
As they say in N'awlins (and pardon my French), "laissez les bon temps rouler."
Welcome to Vicelvania?
Well, I'm not so sure.
Gov. Ed, in his annual budget address to the Legislature yesterday, called for a higher cigarette tax, new taxes on cigars, snuff, pipe and chewing tobacco and legalizing another form of gambling (video poker) even before all the state's new 14 slots casinos are built.
Up to five machines could go in any of 14,000 restaurants, bars and private clubs with liquor licenses, carrying the potential for 70,000 machines, more than the law allows at all casinos.
The revenue, $550 million a year, would fund a new tuition-assistance program offering $7,600 a year at state community colleges or public universities for families making less than $100,000 a year.
When Rendell said during his address, "I do not view the legalization of video poker as the first step in an attempt to expand gaming" (something he opposed in the past), many House Republicans groaned, laughed, hooted or booed.
"Listen. Just be polite enough to listen," snapped Rendell, then, angrier, "You better listen!" He said many families "desperately need" college help in the bad economy.
He argued that illegal video poker is omnipresent but unregulated and untaxed, and offers an opportunity for new state money.
Some lawmakers later suggested such logic could be used to argue for legalized prostitution or marijuana.
Asked about that at a subsequent news conference, Rendell said since gaming already is legal in state casinos while those other vices are not legal in the state, "Pardon my French, that is a stupid argument."
Not sure which French he wants pardoned.
But video poker - proposed unsuccessfully for decades - is a tough go.
Senate Republican Leader Dominic Pileggi said that in the GOP-controlled Senate, "it will have a very, very difficult time."
Senate President Joe Scarnati said he senses "a lean against it."
And Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon County, said, "Oh, yeah, it would be tough. It's gonna be a party-line vote."
Even Mayor Nutter, who "came to listen," said he is "very concerned" because he hasn't seen details.
House Democrats seem to mostly support it.
When I point out to House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans that in the past he was never a fan of funding government through gambling, he says, "People change. We're living in a time of change we can believe in."
The overall $29 billion budget calls for no new across-the-board taxes but a new 5 percent tax on the extraction of natural gas.
The guv wants to nearly double (to 90,000) the number of lower-income adults getting state health insurance, which he has tried before.
He wants to allow counties to impose a sales-tax boost (a nice political punt) and calls for tons of program cuts in almost every area except education, welfare and public safety.
Because those basics are saved and Philadelphia relies heavily on the state in those areas, the city isn't likely to face undue suffering.
Neither the mayor, for example, nor any Philly lawmaker whined to me about budget cuts. This is unusual.
Also unusual, and controversial, is a Rendell plan to consolidate the state's 501 school districts into 100, and eliminate about 2,600 state jobs through attrition, layoffs and program eliminations.
Could be a different-looking state. But Vicelvania? Maybe not yet. *
Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.
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