"This past March, Dr. Clyde Barrow, the director of the Center for Policy Analysis (CFPA) at UMass Dartmouth, authored a paper outlining his recommendations for how to introduce casino gambling into Massachusetts. It detailed a very specific set of guidelines for how to "maximize the economic impacts of expanded gambling in Massachusetts."
Barrow's blueprint called for "three commercial resort casinos," to be situated in Suffolk Downs, southeastern Massachusetts and western Massachusetts. It promised that, collectively, the casinos would generate $1.5 billion in revenue and create 20,000 jobs. It recommended a 27 percent tax rate on gaming revenue, which would generate "over $400 million" in revenue for the state, half of which would be spent on local aid. It suggested that the state charge $600 million in casino licensing fees every 10 years. It also recommended that the casinos allocate 2 percent of their gross revenues to offset the costs of communities near the new casinos.
In August, just as Governor Deval Patrick was retiring to the Berkshires to study the research gathered by his Gambling/Gaming Internal Study Group, C. Stanley McGee, the Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning in the Executive Office at Housing and Economic Development, added a copy of Barrow's report to the governor's packet of gambling research materials. The report was preceded by a rather unusual disclaimer:
"As most of you know, the work of Professor Barrow and The Center for Policy Analysis at UMass Dartmouth is not without some controversy, and many opponents of expanded gaming question the rigor of the economic analysis and the independence of the organization given its pro-gaming recommendations. All that being said, we wanted to circulate the report for your convenience since some of you have seen mention of it in the news and had asked for a copy."
Despite the warnings from his staff, a little over a month after receiving a copy of Barrow's blueprint, Patrick returned from his sojourn in the woods to deliver a gambling plan remarkably similar to Barrow's proposal: He recommended three casinos taxed at 27 percent, and said the state would reap $400 million in new tax revenues, $600 million in 10-year licensing fees, 20,000 jobs and a 2.5 percent allocation of gross funds to local communities. The end result would be $2 billion in instant economic development, Patrick said. Casinos would allow Massachusetts to surmount a fiscal crunch, advance an expensive gubernatorial agenda and close a $15-$19 billion transportation funding gap without raising taxes.
Outside of Barrow's papers and studies that casinos have funded (some of which rely on Barrow's research), hard numbers for casinos' economic benefits, by and large, don't exist. And if it's problematic that Patrick built a major policy decision on one man's research, it's doubly so that that research comes with a warning from the governor's own staff. "
Get the Story:THE BIG BLIND (The Weekly Dig 9/27)
