Use gambling revenue for tax cuts and scholarships, industry group says
Gambling advocates prepare to make their move, Leppert ready to step out of the mayor’s office and Wentworth will chair a new Senate committee. (Happy birthday to former Rep. Glen Maxey, Brent Annear of the Texas Medical Association and the Statesman’s Kathy Blackwell.) House and Senate are in at 10 today. Joint session later in the morning for State of the Judiciary. Some telling details about the coming push for expanded gambling can be found on the revamped website of the Texas Gaming Association. Casino owners and investors back the Gaming Association. But its website suggests it supports a plan that would allow voters to approve up to eight destination-resort casinos, as well as eight racetracks with slot machines and gaming on the tribal lands of the state’s three recognized Indian tribes. The association wants the state to designate some of the gaming money for the property-tax relief fund and some of it for Texas Grant scholarships. (In other words, something for Republicans and something for Democrats). The casino owners say their plan could produce $1 billion or more in the upcoming biennium, mostly through the fees that operators would pay for the licenses to operate casinos. Conventional wisdom says gambling is a tough sell in this conservative Legislature. But the House and Senate have laid out base budgets that sit billions of dollars short of the money needed to continue current services in education and Medicaid. Teachers all over Texas are at risk of losing their jobs, and nursing homes are at risk of shutting down. All of which is to say that we probably shouldn’t entirely dismiss the possibility that some sort of gambling measure will go before voters.Use gambling revenue for tax cuts and scholarships, industry group says