Published: August 29, 2007 08:15 am      

Fletcher brings anti-casino crusade to Richmond

Improved education, not casinos will bring better jobs to Kentucky, Gov. Ernie Fletcher told a group of about 50 supporters during a campaign stop Tuesday afternoon at Eastern Kentucky University.

While his Democratic opponent, former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear, promises to increase funding for education with profits from casino gambling, Fletcher said casinos would damage the state’s economy and lead to increased crime and other social problems.

“It would also send the wrong message to Kentucky youth,” he said. “We teach our children that hard work and study are the way to get ahead, not rolling the dice and hoping to win the jackpot.”

For casinos to generate $500 million in annual state revenues, which he said Beshear promises, Kentucky families would have to lose three times that amount at slot machines and gaming tables. “That averages out to $13,000 a year for a family of four.”

Money spent at casinos does not circulate multiple times in the local economy, he said. Two-thirds of casino gamblers’ projected losses, $1 billion, would leave Kentucky each year for the coffers of Las Vegas-based gambling concerns.

Fletcher played a video of interview he conducted this summer with a late middle-aged woman who was convicted of embezzling from the small-town bank where she had worked for 33 years.

She became a compulsive gambler after her bank began sponsoring casino trips for its senior citizen customers. “I’d never been in a casino and didn’t know what a slot machine was until I started helping with those trips,” she said. “No one else wanted to go on the trips with our older customers, but I’d always loved working with older people.”

On her first casino trip, she won a $500 jackpot, she said. “That made me feel like the luckiest person ever.” Soon the monthly trip with bank customers was not enough. She started going weekly and then daily. As her losses mounted, she mortgaged her home and then borrowed from her 401-K retirement fund. After exhausting those sources, she turned to embezzling.

With 33 years of honest work for the bank, no one suspected her of embezzling. Bank examiners discovered her crime after she had stolen $214,000.

“Fortunately for me, I was caught before I could steal more,” she said.

Now that she has exhausted her retirement fund and must pay restitution, she has to work when she could be enjoying her retirement.

While there are people who may be losing money they cannot afford playing the state lottery or betting on horse races, Fletcher said those forms of gambling do not lead to addiction as often as casino gambling does.

While state government can always spend more money, efficient management and promotion of industry and education are better solutions than casinos or tax increases, Fletcher said.

“When I took office, state government faced a massive revenue shortfall,” he said. “The state’s two largest newspapers said the problem could not be solved without raising taxes.”

Fletcher said he rejected that advice and worked with his cabinet officers to reduce state spending in almost all areas except primary and secondary education.

“We then focused on attracting industry and boosting tourism,” he said.

Since then, 100,000 new jobs have been created and tourism has grown by 24 percent, he said, adding that at the same time, the number of state government employees dropped by 2,000.

“Instead of raising taxes, we eliminated state income tax for those at the lowest income level,” he said.

Medicaid reform has yielded some of the biggest savings of any of his initiatives, the governor said. Devising ways for seniors to use their Medicaid payment for nursing care at home has proved to be cheaper than paying for nursing home care.

Fletcher said the incentive package for development of a coal liquefaction plant passed this month in a special legislative session would not be a drain on the state treasury. The incentives include interest-free loans and elimination of sales tax on purchases by the builders. “That is tax revenue we would not have received in the first place,” he said.

Liquefied fuel from coal burns cleaner than conventional coal combustion, he said. The incentive package also includes funding for carbon dioxide abatement. “We may be able to capture carbon dioxide and force it into our old coal fields to flush out methane, which can then be used as fuel,” he said.

In response to a question about mountaintop removal to extract coal, Fletcher said he had just come from a visit to Eastern Kentucky where he landed at an airport that had been built “on a mountaintop that had been removed.”

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 623-1669, Ext. 267