New Jersey Casinos Shut as Part of State Budget Battle

Atlantic City is not the Las Vegas of the East. It is too tawdry, ramshackle and plain dreadful for that. However, it does have the longest-lived casinos on the Atlantic coast of the US, and thousands of mostly elderly religiously get on the buses that deliver them daily from New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere to feed their pension money into slot machines. Except today. Because of a dispute between the governor and the legislature over the state budget, there are no casinos open today.

The problem stems from a simple fact of New Jersey’s political life. The constitution requires the state to have a budget in place by July 1. No continuing resolutions are allowed. If the budget isn’t passed and signed by that date each year, bills go unpaid. With the exception of things like prisons, child welfare and police personnel (which are deemed essential), the state government is shut.

The dispute appears trifling on the surface. Democratic Governor John Corzine wants to raise the state sales tax from 6% to 7% to cover a $4.5 billion deficit in his $31 billion spending plan. The state legislature, which is also controlled by the Democrats, believes that the $275 this will cost each family in New Jersey will make them unpopular with the voters in November. So, they are unwilling to do the governor’s bidding.

So, the state casino supervisors, who insure that the games are square (odd, given how rough New Jersey politics is and how much patronage there is in the state government), don’t get paid. As of 8 am this morning, the casinos of Atlantic City stopped taking bets. The horse tracks, public beaches, state parks and historical sites are also closed.

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) has said, “We have not ruled anything in and we have not ruled anything out,” suggesting that an increase in the state income tax could be the solution. This is a gift to the Republicans of the state and certainly will figure in November’s national elections. The GOP has no record of its own given Iraq, the deficit and an invisible energy policy. But have they got a slogan here, “The Democrats can’t even agree on how to raise your taxes.” In the meanwhile, the state is losing $1.2 million a day -- its cut of the casino revenues.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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