LETTER FROM MOSCOW
Must credit Moscow-Pullman Daily News
By MARK N. TRAHANT
Moscow-Pullman Daily News
MOSCOW, Idaho - A couple of years ago anti-tax crusaders on Capitol Hill
thought they found a painless method of raising revenue. Conservative
Republicans, who usually hate taxes, proposed taxing American Indian
casinos at rates between 15 and 35 percent of gross income. The reasoning
was that tribes had found a new source of riches - and it was only fair
that the U.S. Treasury collect its share.
The proposed tax was added to the 1995 budget reconciliation bill by
members of the House Ways and Means Committee. The Senate had more sense
and killed it.
The idea died because, as critics noted, tribes are governments and if the
federal government is going to tax tribal governments, then it ought to
also collect from state lotteries and other forms of government-sponsored
gaming.
Such is the state of gambling in America. Gambling is this country's
favorite single sport. More people buy lottery tickets or walk into a
casino's door than attend professional baseball, basketball and football
games combined.
Gambling is also a public business. Idaho is a bookie running a numbers
racket. Same goes for Montana, Oregon and all but a handful of states.
State-sponsored gambling - a socialist enterprise if there ever was one -
generates more than $140 million a year in Washington state alone.
Too often, though, the public debate focuses on tribal gaming - an industry
accounting for less than eight percent of all legal wagers - instead of
looking at the larger political questions. When social or other negative
consequences of gambling are debated, it's easy to blame tribal casinos for
bringing this ill into our society.
Is there a double standard? Consider the creation of the National Gambling
Impact Study Commission. A new federal panel was appointed to study all
forms of legal gambling in America, a $550 billion a year industry. Its
charter calls for an independent study of the rapid growth of gambling,
private and public. Three members of the panel were appointed by the
president, three by the Senate and three by the House.
On February 10, on the floor of the House, one of the study commission's
sponsors, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, warned the Clinton Administration
that it should not appoint "gambling advocates" to the panel because
"should this come to pass, it would prevent a commission from doing any
meaningful work." The appointments, Wolf said, should be men and women who
will make an objective and thorough review of gambling.
Then Wolf raised the specter of influence buying. "Now we have learned," he
said, "that the gambling interests that once gave millions of dollars to
both political parties also had a coffee with the President of the United
States at some of the infamous White House coffees."
Wolf quoted a Wall Street Journal account of the Oneida Nation donating
some $30,000 to the Democratic National Committee on the same day as its
tribal leader was attending a White House coffee. Money. Influence. And
proof that Indian gambling was big business purchasing decisions from the
president.
But the story did not end there. When the panel members were finally named,
gambling interests in Nevada and New Jersey were well represented.
On April 29, Wolf accused the president of selling out. "Today's
appointments reaffirm how America feels about this administration. It
appears to be for sale to the highest bidder and in cases like this is
fundamentally corrupt."
This time Wolf did not blame tribal casinos. He could not. An Alaskan
Native was appointed to the panel. But Robert Wayne Loescher, a Tlingit,
represents a tribe that does not have legal gambling and the White House
says he is "personally known to be anti-gambling." Two candidates who were
rejected by the White House: Tad Johnson, whom the Washington Post
described as "a registered member of an Indian tribe that has a casino in
Minnesota." And, Forrest J. Gerard, a Blackfeet, who has made numerous
contributions to Indian policy for four decades (and, in fairness, I should
disclose is a friend of mine). Gerard's sin: He worked for tribes involved
in gaming and was a director of a gaming company.
This liability did not matter for other presidential appointments: Bill
Bible, chairman of the Nevada Gambling Control Board, and Richard Leone, a
former New Jersey Treasurer and political ally of Sen. Robert Torricelli.
Other appointments from the Congress include a casino company chief
executive and a union leader with strong Nevada ties.
When the gambling industry gets its way two years from now when the study
is completed, someone will figure out how to blame Indian gambling for the
mess that has been created. It's the American way.
(Mark N. Trahant is editor and publisher of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News
in Moscow, Idaho. His email address is trahant(at)earthlink.net)
Mark N. Trahant
Editor & Publisher
Moscow-Pullman Daily News
409 S. Jackson
Moscow, Idaho 83843
(208) 882-5561 ext. 247
fax (208) 883-8205
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