Why Are Bakk, Dayton Taking Money From Children To Give To Zygi Wilf?

I’m not much of a gambler, personally – but I support legalizing it more broadly at a state level.  I support it because it’s a tax on people other than me.

Cynical?  Sure.  Pass the ketchup.

Seriously?  For better or worse, gambling has its place in Minnesota.  For over two decades, proceeds from pull tabs – the most pointless form of gambling in history, but I digress – have gone to supporting Minnesota non-profits and charities.  Everything from youth hockey to local job training programs benefit from pull tabs.

And now, Tom Bakk and Mark Dayton want to raid that pile of money to give it to Zygi Wilf, according to Gary Gross at LFR.

The clinker?  Bakk’s proposal – “E-tabs”, a zippier, more IPod-enabled version of pulltabs to attract the kids – will take money from a pot that’s already dwindling; charitable gambling is already off by a huge margin in Minnesota:

There’s more reason for concern than those mentioned by Wilson. This House Research report offers a stunning opinion. The title speaks for itself:

2006-2010: Industry under Stress

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. This information is troubling:

  • Since fiscal year 2004, gross receipts from lawful gambling have declined by over 20 percent
  • For fiscal year 2008, the industry reported its biggest drop in state gambling taxes paid—a 12.8 percent decrease from the previous year due to the drop in gross receipts
  • Total receipts have gone from $1.500 billion in 2000 to $1.032 billion in 2009, a decrease of about 31 percent
Gary notes the part that confirms Bakk’s boundless cynicism:

Let’s remember that Sen. Bakk, then the chairman of the Senate Tax Committee, knew this information when he proposed this ‘solution’ to the Vikings stadium situation. This information raises important questions, more than I can address in a single post. The biggest questions go to politicians like Gov. Dayton and Sen. Bakk.

The first question I’d want answered is this: why would Gov. Dayton and Sen. Bakk propose using revenues from an “industry under stress” the last 5 years?

Because gambling is a unicorn.

Not literally, like a flying horse with a horn.  But DFL financing is always built on the idea that some sort of magical unicorn – “gamblers”, or “the rich” – will bring money to them for their grandest plans, and all they have to do is say “heeeeeer, unicorn!”

So Tom Bakk hears “gambling”, and thinks “money for nothing”!

Conservatives know that there is no such thing as money for nothing.

And Gary would like to point that out:

The next question I’d have for Gov. Dayton and Sen. Bakk is equally simple: Why would they put funding for charities and school sports programs at risk?

Good question.

Well, Senator Bakk?  Governor åDayton?  What’s the answer?  And there really are only two choices.  And one of them is “screw the kids, if I don’t keep the Vikes here, my voters will have a cow”‘.

5 thoughts on “Why Are Bakk, Dayton Taking Money From Children To Give To Zygi Wilf?

  1. This reminds me of a cartoon quoted on the KQRS morning show yesterday.
    Son: Dad I’m thinking about going into Organized Crime
    Dad: Government or Private Sector?

    Also, screw the little ones, I say all that money goes to Wilf, he will spend it better than our idiot government anyway. No this isn’t sarcasm, I honestly believe this.

  2. The obvious answer to the posited question is liberal Democrats are thieves. They steal from the rich and give to the rich. Meanwhile, they gull the morons into supporting their propositions with pseudo altruistic bullshit. Good work if you can get it.

  3. “Not literally, like a flying horse with a horn”

    That would be a pegacorn, or maybe a unisus.

  4. “That would be a pegacorn, or maybe a unisus”

    Hey Troy; I think that I have actually seen these creatures once in my younger days, after a night of drinking Rumplemintz and Dos Equis!

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