Pa will furlough workers if table games spurned-Gov

Reuters ^ | 1/4/10 | Joan Gralla

[malkee]

Pennsylvania will have to furlough 1,000 state workers if the legislature does not legalize table games at casinos by the end of this week, the governor and his secretary of administration said on Monday.

The furloughs will be needed to help close a $250 million hole in the budget, Democratic Governor Ed Rendell said in a statement.

Pennsylvania currently allows only slot machines at its new casinos, which compete with New Jersey's Atlantic City's resorts that have offered table games for decades.

[malkee]

Go, Ed.

[jessduntno]

Who is Pa? Where did the headline come from, Variety?

[Graybeard58]

Well, at least gambling is a voluntary tax. I’m still agin taxes but this would be one I wouldn’t have to pay.

I opted out of cigarette taxes about a year and a half ago.

[wastedyears]

Looking at it, that’s $250,000 they’re each getting.

When you have civil servants earning more than $60,000 after any bonuses, you have a problem.

[Graybeard58]

Who is Pa? Where did the headline come from, Variety?

Ma's husband.

[malkee]

Pa is Pennsylvania. Check the link for the headline.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Casinos, lotteries, etc. are just a beggar-thy-neighbor zero-sum game.

If the choice is between expanding or not expanding casinos, then people haven't been thinking hard enough, or care enough, to get out of their financial woes.

[randog]

Well, at least gambling is a voluntary tax.

And a great way to tax the poor without feeling guilty or getting heat about it.

[K-oneTexas]

I thought I read that Gov. Arnold of California was just told by the Ca Supreme Court that that was unconstitutional.

So, PA being a Commonwealth can do it differently and get away with it or is it that Gov. Ed is a Democrat and doesn’t have to adhere to the rules.

Any PA Freepers up on the situation?

[malkee]

I opted out of cigarette taxes about a year and a half ago

Check my tagline.

[bvw]

100 percent dittos.

Casinos are like the government paying gangs to throw stones through windows to employ window replacers.

In time the Gangs take over government and no one replaces a window unless it’s made by the mob, and the mob makes cheap windows.

[Graybeard58]

I thought it would be that way with me because I had quit before for shorter periods and thought about smoking all the time. It hasn’t been that way this time, I rarely think about it and when I do it’s a fleeting thought.

Let’s hang in there.

[jessduntno]

“Pa is Pennsylvania. Check the link for the headline.”

Ohhhhhh...in MY country, we refer to states by two capital letters...like PA, CA, NV, you know? It looks like a third grade remedial reading class is writing for the media these days...

[aMorePerfectUnion]

If only they really would lay off 1000 or 10000 state
workers...

[COBOL2Java]

Don’t do it, Pa! Ma said give ‘em a chance!

[malkee]

Let’s. I don’t think about it all the time. Once a day is about right.