Massachusetts should authorize resort casinos in addition to slot machines at racetracks, House Speaker Robert DeLeo declared Friday, laying out a vision of expanded gaming that could launch a proliferation of venues around the state.
The Winthrop Democrat has long pushed for slot machines at racetracks to boost gaming operators in his district and now is more vocally backing the resort casinos pushed last session by Gov. Deval Patrick and defeated by the House. DeLeo was among the House Democrats who sent Patrick’s casino bill to a dead-end study last year. Now he’s pushing expansion plans, which have previously enjoyed support in the Senate and from the governor.
“I am confident that we will site gaming facilities in a way that reflects the geographic diversity of our state,” DeLeo said Friday morning in remarks prepared for delivery at an Associated Industries of Massachusetts event in Waltham. “To maximize our investment, we will explore the idea of using gaming proceeds to invest in other industries. Given the importance of economic development as well as the vital need for revenue, I have expanded my thinking. In addition to my backing of slots, I now support resort casinos.”
DeLeo also identified other areas where he’d like to see legislative action, including policies to align transportation and housing initiatives, partner community colleges with certain industries, and correct “unforeseen ramifications” of the so-called water’s edge tax regulations. He said he wants comprehensive regulatory reform, asserting that “too often the intent of laws passed by legislators gets lost amid a sea of regulation.”
Critics of expanded gambling predict it will weaken the lucrative state Lottery, suck money away from existing businesses, and spur a wave of expensive social problems, including personal bankruptcies, broken families and domestic violence. Supporters say Massachusetts is already dealing with gambling’s ill effects and should delve more deeply into the industry to lift the economy and raise money for public budgets battered by spending cuts.
Despite a raft of tax hikes in the past two years, the state’s coffers are not swelling with additional revenue. And as Patrick aides work on a fiscal 2011 budget bill, DeLeo said he sees little room for new spending or tax breaks.
“Given the current economic climate, I don’t expect any new spending measures soon,” he said. “Nor do I see much appetite for industry-wide tax credits. But I am very interested in those measures which would have no impact on our budget.”
The Legislature is nine months into its 2009-2010 session and expanded gambling bills still have not received the perfunctory public hearing, ostensibly a launching point for collection and digestion of the latest information from opponents and proponents. DeLeo said a hearing will be held in October, but made clear he’s already involved.
“We are currently studying the proposals that are out there in anticipation of developing a plan of our own,” he said. “I will weigh all the economic factors and studies about what the introduction of gaming means during this difficult fiscal time.” The hearing, he said, “will provide additional information to assist me in my decision making.”
AIM, the state’s largest business trade group, says state regulations implementing tax law changes authorized in 2008 are “administratively burdensome and unfair” and threaten to shut off job growth at multi-state and multi-national corporations doing business in Massachusetts but with the option to shift operations out of state.
DeLeo said the House was “taking the fall” to look more closely at controversial health care payment reform recommendations, which analysts say are key to addressing one of the state’s most vexing problems: soaring health care costs that impede business growth, curb consumer spending, and make access to care less affordable.
With job losses in the past year exceeding 100,000 in Massachusetts, DeLeo repeated a mantra of state officials - that the state should look to take advantage of the diversity in its economy. He voiced support for growing jobs in sectors that state government has boosted with favorable policies: the film, clean energy and life sciences sectors.
The state’s jobless rate raced past 9 percent Thursday and economists are predicting a long, weak recovery, an assessment DeLeo acknowledged during remarks that emphasizes his optimism and his own reworking of Thomas Friedman’s “Invented Here, Sold There” saying to describe American product discoveries manufactured abroad.
DeLeo offered a new business motto suggestion. “My goal with economic development in Massachusetts is that we capture and capitalize upon the innovation that has always sparked here in Massachusetts. I want our new business motto to be ‘Invented here, manufactured here',” DeLeo said.
DeLeo took the long view of the state’s economic history to make the point that he believes things will get better.
“In the midst of the Great Depression as businesses and employers around Massachusetts closed their doors, if someone had said that in less than a generation a whole new prosperous economic region would spring up on a road circling Boston built on state-of-the-art technology, they would have received looks of disbelief, to say the least,” DeLeo said. “Yet, it did happen. In less than two decades, a whole technology sector of the Massachusetts economy arose, which led our state into a new era. Also, since its inception Massachusetts has seen its share of boom and bust cycles. Through them all, we have persevered and prospered.”
WALTHAM —
