No to Tobin’s Gambling ‘Solution’: It’s Time for the State to Come of Age

 The Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) and The Arizona Conservative are rising in opposition to a proposal by Arizona House Majority Whip Andy Tobin for a massive increase in legalized gambling in an attempt to fix the state budget. CAP President Cathi Herrod said: “During a tough economic time, it does not make sense to expand gambling when the social and economic costs of gambling outweigh the benefits by 3 to 1. If Mr. Tobin's budget proposal passes, it would allow slots and table games at racetracks, which would ‘blow the caps’ on current gambling restrictions on Indian reservations. This likely would result in Phoenix and the entire state becoming virtually the next Las Vegas.”The Arizona Conservative says: Arizona and other states need to realize that gambling breeds far more problems than it can ever possibly solve: bankrupting families, ruining marriages, compulsive gamblers driven to embezzle from their employers, benefiting organized crime, drying up the businesses in close proximity. All we’ve accomplished by proliferating gambling in Arizona is to swell the ranks of the membership of Gamblers Anonymous. What we haven’t accomplished is solving unemployment, crime, alcoholism and other social ills.Instead of looking to the false hope of gambling, the Arizona Legislature needs to get real and cut spending. It was spending, by the Napolitano administration and misguided legislators, that created this huge budget problem. It’s time for the state to come of age and stop spending more of OUR money than it has