YOUR COMMENTS

Roland,
I think the 10% gambling winnings tax is great. Maybe it wil discourage some people from getting involved in gambling or wasting so much of their hard earned money at it. Plus there is zero investment requred - no casinos to build and maintain, just website's.

I'm not talking about a ban of all gambling, just the most addictive, dangerous and expensive to build - slots casinos. So stick your nazi baloney where the sun don't shine.

Nobody ever lost their entire life savings due to a cigarette or junk food addiction (is there such a thing?) - tens of thousands have as a result of gambling.
- Jim, Manchester

Roland,
Yes we have tons of gambling already and its generating good some cash flow and we already have a solid tourism industry. Why do we need more more more? Is there no limit to your greed for money and power? (Oh I meant to say 'revenue' and 'social programs funding.') Are you so blind as to see that is not a way of exerting control over people lives?

Economic neanderthals like yourself seem to think the money spent at casinos falls out of the sky, or is printed in the basement of racinos. Wrong! It is transferred out of other segments of the economy. All the money that would be spent at gambling venues and given to that industry, and to the government, is money that would have otherwise been spent on food, skiing, appliances, housing etc. The result is that jobs shift away from those industries to the gambling industry. Gambling has a higher tax rate than those industries so yes, more of the spending ends up as revenue public coffers, but less ends up in the hands of farmers, manufacturers, and retailers.

Those industries have good side effects - better quality of life, good work ethics, and community development. The gambling industry - not so much.

Public spending is less effective at creating economic growth than private spending, essentially because business people are smarter investors than legislators. So by transferring money to the government using higher tax rates on gambling spending, you promote economic decline.

I don't care that some of that money goes to CT, MA or ME. We are all 1 nation. They get a higher percentage of the problems and bad side-effects too.
- Jim, Manchester

Mr. Sorrentino,
Yes, the gambling industry is predatory – why do casinos have no windows, no clocks, and free drinks to get people liquored up... etc? Especially slot machines that are specifically designed to maximize addiction - look it up.

I agree that we need to prevent/discourage predatory practices by credit card, mortgage companies, and Congress. The GOP is dead wrong on this issue. But the DNC bears just as much if not more blame relative to the recent catastrophic failure to regulate the mortgage industry. I fail to see how gun sales are predatory.

You defended the nanny state party when you brought up gay marriage which was a DNC initiative in NH. When did the GOP tell gays they couldn’t live together? How many gay ‘weddings,’ performed at Episcopal churches over the last 30 years, has Newt Gingrich raided and halted? It’s the DNC that is telling me I’m not allowed to use the traditional definition of marriage in the tax code, and to teach my kids, that marriage is between 1 man and 1 woman – that is my civil right. I see the DNC position as hypocritical, saying they are pro-civil rights while they take mine away.

Please note that I am an independent who used to sometimes vote Democrat before they went wide left and now votes libertarian whenever a halfway respectable candidate arises but I usually ends up holding my nose and voting Republican as the least damaging alternative.

I don’t post my last name on the Union Leader. I have my reasons. Stop telling me how to live my life.
- Jim, Manchester

Didn't Foxwoods default on a slot income payment to Connecticut just recently? If the indians are seeing slow chash flow it probably isn't the time for a start up here.
- Paul, Dover

For those who think being conservative and not wanting gambling makes us social Nazi’s you are way off base.

Please go gamble all you want. Start poker games in your homes and play, even name your own stakes. Let a private business run a slot machine hall. Just leave the government out of it, because I truly can't stand any more lies of how it's going to save the rest of us from these corrupt over spending hacks we seem to put into office.

Next you people will be claiming if the state does not get gambling revenue children will die. Some of us are old enough to know how politicians work and these days it has little to do with us the people and everything to do with government’s lofty goals of more government. What next claiming Lynch and friends have abolished waste, fraud and corruption in the democrat party. LOL
- Deb, Derry

John S in Nashua,
The Joseph brothers had also managed to take care fo themselves quite well for almost 70 years and were in decent health. They had a very similiar outlook on life as you seem to. Then one day they were murdered and robbed by someone they treated as a friend. Kim went straight to Foxwoods that same night and starting gambling with the money he stole.
- Jim, Manchester

Corey,
Proximity to gambling venues is going to generate more gambling, more addiction and more local crime. It's harder to get addicted to game that is a 2 or 3 hour drive away.

Google"gambling murder addiction." It happens all the time. Google "Theodore and Gary Joseph uno kim" for a tragic local example.

You are right that alcohol is addictive and kills people, as does gambling. Two wrongs don't make a right. By your argument just because NH sells alcohol we should legalize heroin and put violent video games in the hallways of schools.

It is okay for individuals and governments to borrow money occasionally, for things that will generate a yield or return on investement. But when that becomes a continual pattern it is unsustainable and dangerous. We reached that point a long time ago Corey.

"If you don't like it, then move..." How many times have I heard that baloney from people lately. NO. I won't move. Make me. I have some other choice words for people like you that are not fit to print. Hey, I have a great idea. Since you are the one who is trying to change the way things are here, and have been since 1709, by introducing more gambling. Why don't YOU MOVE to a place that already has it. More choice words...
- Jim, Manchester

Always say no to expanded gaming at Rockingham Park!
- JeffD, Salem

New Hampshire: Live Free or Die.

So who are you to tell me how to run my life?

I'm a fiscal conservative and a social "it's nobody's business but my own".

I can just as easily become a slots "addict" by driving over the border into Mass. So why not put the slots in Salem and have NH reap the fiscal benefits?

And don't worry about my well-being.. I've managed to take care of myself for 60 years.
- JohnS., Nashua

I gotta laugh at the people who are against "addicts." How many of these knuckleheads would ban smoking, junk food, or booze?

It is true, the GOP are social control freaks, and to make matters worse they don't understand economics. Anyone who would say they don't want the tax income because they don't want to allow the legislature to spend it is so foolish that they should be disregarded out of hand.

Gambling exists already, as an entertainment business that creates huge cash flows. To not participate, to divert some of that flow to this state's coffers, WHEN WE ARE A TOURISM STATE, is just koolaid craziness - ie facts don't matter.

Ironically the state just instituted a 10% "gambling profits" tax on wagers made by NH people online or anyplace they gambled, so we tax gambling already! So we tax gambling then say no business can operate a casino in NH. Pure hypocrisy, and economic ignorance.

GOP = social nazis.
- Roland, Manchester

Jim, Jim, Jim…

You wrote “Banning slots and limiting card tables is about protecting people from predators, not about telling people how to live their lives.” Are your “predators” the owners of the companies that make up the gaming industry? Why are they predators?

Why not replace “Banning slots and limiting card tables” with “Regulating credit card companies” or “Regulating mortgage companies” or “Restricting gun sales” or etc, etc.

You’re being hypocritical and you seem not know to how to read. Where did I defend the nanny state party? Others understood what I wrote. I will try again for you…. If NH Republicans spent more time on being fiscally conservative and less on “banning” and “limiting” (your words) people’s choices, then the NH Republicans would be more successful. Now do you get it?

Also, don’t you have a last name? Are you ashamed of it, or of your comments? Maybe just missing the nerve, or something else?
- Peter Sorrentino, Manchester

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"; "spend within your means!"; hookers and burglars and drugs, oh my!

People addicted to gambling are already gambling. SLots will not, nor have they been proven to, create more addicts.

Why don't we get the state out of all the "addiction" businesses? CLose up the liquor stores, shut down the lottery and burn all the scratch tickets.

And as far as the writer talking about spending within our means? Really? Why did this paper NEVER critique spending when the GOP run-legislature and corner office racked up some of the highest spending and taxes in our history?

This is 2009, not 1709 like many of you "conservatives" would like it to be. A modern society has different obligations, different needs and different challenges. It's not as easy as just "living within your means" when you have the obligation to maintain for the welfare of a society.

If you don't like it, then move to the wilderness and live like Grizzly Adams or Little House on the Prairie.

And i, for one, who visit casinos regularly, have never seen anyone lift a wild cherry machine off its stand and beat a person to death in a gambling-addicted rage.

Can you say the same about the drunks who kill people after buying their cheap vodka on the highway?
- Corey, Manchester

If gambling is supposed to lower taxes how come they never include a property tax or business tax reduction in the same bill as the gambling proposal?
- Jim, Manchester

Mr Sorrentino,
You have it all backwards again. Banning slots and limiting card tables is about protecting people from predators, not about telling people how to live their lives. If conservatives were telling people how to live we'd ban bingo and the lottery too.

Gays have never been prevented from marrying in the US. The new push for government recognition of those pre-existing gay marriages is about preventing those who disagree with homosexuality from simply not recognizing those faux-marriages. It is about forcing me subsidize thru my tax and insurance payments, life styles I disagree with. Why do Democrats insist on making Humanism the official State Religion? Why to Democrats insist on telling me how to live my life?

Stop using you intelligence to invent bogus rationalizations for the nanny state party.
- Jim, Manchester

Don Armstrong,
Yep, that is why we call the lottery the 'idiot tax.'

The NH advantage is; if you don't like high New England taxes you can live in a dumpy little house and not play the lottery! Lucky us [sarcasm].

I'm more worried (not so much) about all the grandma's blowing their half social security checks playing 14 bingo cards simultaneously than I am about Mega-Millions addicts.
- Jim, Manchester

Jim in Salem,
Slots and dogs are 2 different animals. Apples and oranges. No one has ever gotten addicted to dog racing. Slots machines today are deliberatly designed to be addictive. The crime, abuse, neglect, personal bankruptcy, etc. stems from the addictions.
- Jim, Manchester

I don't understand the rational of people who are against expanded gambling. It is a source of revenue and job creation that is lacking at both the state and federal level. Alternatives will be a state sales and income tax to generate revenue and increased federal taxes to pay for the medicaid shortfall once the feds pass the healthcare legislation. Having lived in Salem for 60 years, I can remember the race track "averaging" over a $1,000,000 a day handle with an average attendance in excess of 10,000 with a town population of under 6,000 and Salem did not experience the concerns that opponents of gambling legislation continually expound upon.
- Jim, Salem

Good post Don from Henniker, the people in Concord and the FixItNow folks don't like to hear about the 10% W2-G income tax for NH residents. We have to keep the players informed until that tax is repealed. Slim chance at that.
I do wonder if these "charity events" pay that 10% tax? It's all about the math and the numbers don't add up!
- Sydney, Londonderry

It's not "then" its "and".
- Jeff, Manchester

Slots are the most addictive and dangerous form of gambling. Poker destroys thousand of lives nationwide every year but slots destroys more.

This bill does not adress how to prevent addicts from being killed for cash by gambling addicts, like what happened to the Joseph brothers in Manchester a few years back.

No amount of 'revenue' is worth it.
- Jim, Manchester

Yep let's keep out gambling. Oh by the way just last week a member of the New Hampshire State Lottery commission was on the Channel 9 news talking about the fact that New Hampshire will now have the Mega Millions lottery tickets to. I guess those odds numbers on the back of a ticket that show your odds of winning are not about a form of gambling. The funny thing was the person talking about the Mega Millions coming here said "Another fine example of the New Hampshire Advantage". And the myth continues to grow! I gather that person did not note that the state of Massachusetts is starting the Power Ball game even though the individual said "It is another reason people will come to this state to make purchases". I gather that person does not know that this state has a 10 percent income tax on lottery winnings over $600.00. In Massachusetts , better known as taxachusettes you will pay the same 5.3% as you do on any normal income but if you win in New Hampshire that New Hampshire Advantage will cost you an additional 4.7% more so please explain to me why any out of state person would play the lottery in this state. Look at it this way "If you had a 10 million dollar winning ticket you would have to pay the state of NH an additional $470,000 in "INCOME TAXES". It does not add up just like the myth of the "New Hampshire Advantage" does not add up.
- Don Armstrong, Henniker

Deb, Derry: Amen Amen.

But I have to admit, I can hardly wait until next week to see what wonderful "cause" Lou will be proffering then. You see, Lou is an addict too - he's one of those "spendaholics" - as long as it's with YOUR money.
- Sandy, Thornton

I hate the gambling people's ads. "Broad based tax or revenue from gambling?" Err...how about neither? I don't want the state to have more revenue with which to control my life, I want them to spend less!
- CDR, Lebanon

My favorite scam as to why we should allow expanded gambling is claiming it will keep our taxes down. Considering how our taxes and fee's have already been raised to the point it hurts and the lie that the new federal government health care plan won't cost us a dime, how in the world is gambling going to save us from what has already taken place or is in the works to take place?

Also is the State going to run a rehabilitation clinic for those who discover they have a gambling addiction problem? Then just like every thing else government can be both the problem and the solution and eat up more of the revenue it claims it will receive from this. And there will be more people than advocates of gambling will admit who end up gambling more than they can afford.

This idea will not save us from the spending of government and is like claiming the solution to a spending addiction is to give the spenders more money. Common sense would dictate the citizens find leaders to control or reduce spending and not seek more money for those who can not manage the same government they expanded to get us to this point. But then I’m one of those nutty conservative types who think the bigger the government the less ability we have to control waste, fraud, and corruption in government and the programs it runs.
- Deb, Derry

This editorial highlights one of the reasons the Republican Party often does not garner the vote of a fiscal conservative. Why must they insist on telling people how to live their lives? If people want to gamble, let them be personally responsible and gamble. If a couple is gay and want to marry, so long as they aren’t adversely affecting the freedoms and liberties of others, why not let them marry? Don’t tell them how to live their lives. This is an aspect of the Republican Party that keeps it from not always winning office in New Hampshire.

In my experience, New Hampshire consists primarily of fiscally conservative, but not nearly as often, socially conservative people. So long as the Republicans insist on telling people how to live their lives, they will continue to lose elections in New Hampshire. Stick to fiscal conservative issues and watch the elected seats return to being filled primarily with Republicans.
- Peter Sorrentino, Manchester

Having seen how the odds are stacked against the player in the current 'charitable' games, getting slots involved will be tantamount to highway robbery. Why does NH always have to screw around? Either put the things in or don't. Putting them in under the guise of charity is totally dishonest.
- Leo, Canterbury

1. Education, tourism, jobs, and charity are not, "rationalizations." They are excellent "reasons."

2. A business enterprise generating millions for the state is not, "false hopes." It's "tax revenue."

3. Spending that tax revenue is not "overspending." And, even if we didn't spend it, we should still collect it.

Other than those three completely misleading premises, this column is ok. Lol.
- Roger, Rochester