Monday, October 30, 2006

Criticism against state Issue 3 could easily be compiled a la Elizabeth
Barrett Browning. "Let me count the ways ." While proponents dub Issue 3
"Learn & Earn" for its wondrous tuition-generating effect, opponents say
this proposal to allow 31,500 slot machines statewide is a smokescreen that
would make a handful of private racetrack owners and developers very, very
rich. Also, some of the numbers are in dispute. While supporters, for
example, say the measure would yield some $850 million each year for Ohio
college students, the state's own budget and management office estimates
that the annual ca-ching! of slot machines would generate not quite $325
million for tuition. Then, too, there's criticism bubbling up from Columbus,
from folks who say Issue 3 is disproportionately nice to Cleveland - where,
with voter OK later, slot machine operations could blossom into full-scale
gaming tables. Oh, and let's not overlook the much ballyhooed social costs.
You know, "the evils of gambling" and all that - no small consideration, as
I see it. Besides, any time our vote would authorize a new state commission
with the word "integrity" embedded in its name (as in, "Gaming Integrity
Commission"), well, I'm thinking maybe the joke would be on us. We could
keep taking inventory of specific objections to Issue 3, but that skips over
what to my mind is one of the weirder aspects of Learn & Earn, namely: How
long do people have to sit around drinking at some bar before they can
convince themselves that slot-machine gambling equals the future of Ohio
college students? Are we not in The Twilight Zone when we think it makes
any sense whatsoever to use higher education as a pitch for voters to
approve gambling? I try and try to envision how this came about, but all I
can conjure up are conversations between Rod Serling and his doppelganger.
"Man, I sure would like to see Ohio get a slice of those gambling dollars,
Rod!"

"Boy, Rod, so would I! Wonder how we can do it?"

"Hey, Rod, I've got it! Let's make slot machines a constitutional amendment!
But, gosh, how could can we sell it to voters?"

"Oooh, oooh, I know! We'll tell 'em it's 'for the children' - that one works
every time, Rod!"

The premise of Issue 3 is so absurdly specious that, were I the bartender on
the night Rod & Himself stopped in, I'd have cut them off long before they
reached that conclusion.

Alas, no one did.

If you go to the Issue 3 proponents' Web site and read "About Ohio Learn &
Earn," you have to plod through five whole paragraphs and 137 words before
reaching that section's first mention of slot machines.

It's true that Ohio gets an "F" for college affordability.