An
enterprise that requires exploiting addiction or ignorance to make
money is morally bankrupt. Yet that is precisely what the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts is doing.

Our political leaders don't have
the courage to adopt a just tax policy or cut the excess costs that
result from favoritism toward well-connected interest groups. Instead,
they consider approving the most predatory form of legalized gambling
in the United States.

Although the Massachusetts Senate voted
31-to-6 against a proposal to install 2,500 slot machines at
racetracks, many Senators explained that their intention was only to
postpone the decision and separate it from the budget bill. House
Speaker DeLeo, Senate President Murray, and Governor Patrick say that
they want to reconsider the question in the fall.

The Senate
did agree to offer Massachusetts's residents (whose per capita
expenditures on the lottery and scratch tickets together is already the
highest in the country) another means of losing money. They voted to
join the multi-state Power Ball lottery. Meanwhile, Treasurer Tim
Cahill suggests building slot-machine-only casinos.

The
rationale is that slot machines would produce much-needed revenue for a
beyond-broke state budget. Okay, but slots would also reduce the amount
of taxable economic activity that would be produced by people spending
their hard-earned money on things other than gambling. And such
economic activity creates more jobs per dollar spent. Nor does the
rationale account for the increases in public welfare, social service,
and public safety costs that slot machines would produce.

Beyond
these abstract economic projections awaits profound human misery. I'm
not talking about gamblers who visit a casino a few times per year as
entertainment or buy the occasional scratch ticket. The casinos would
go bankrupt if those were their only customers.

I'm talking
about the 10% of casino patrons who produce 90% of casinos' revenue-the
addicts. Casino managers' aim is to entice gamblers to "play to
extinction." That is a gambling industry term that means playing until
you have no more money and no access to any.

Scholars who
study such things tell us that slot machines are the most addictive
form of legalized gambling. Casino managers use every means available
to encourage and exploit those addictive qualities. They use video
screens and buttons instead of mechanical wheels and levers so as to
increase the number of plays per hour from 300 to as much a 900.

They
program the results presented on the screen so that the player believes
he or she "almost" hit the jackpot. They build a credit card receptacle
into the machine itself.

They identify addicts and potential
addicts by renting lists from companies that operate ATMs in casinos
and target them with direct mail and email offers. They provide free
alcohol and free or reduced-price lodging to keep people playing.

They
design stools so that players can sit for hours without cutting off
circulation to their legs. When a player seems ready to call it quits,
a casino employee will offer a small cash voucher to keep him or her
chasing the elusive jackpot.

M.I.T. professor Natasha Schüll
says that slot-machine addiction isn't about the urge to win. It's
about entering a trance-like state that casino operators call "the
zone," which produces the same kind of dopamine release in the brain
that addictive drugs provide.

This is what the Commonwealth
will promote by licensing slot machines. Perhaps we can generate even
more revenue by licensing crack houses.

Very few crack dealers
use crack, and even fewer gambling executives use slot machines. I
wonder if any legislators will get into "the zone," or even understand
what they have created.

Some apologists for legalized gambling
say that objections like mine are "elitist." Would they believe that
trying to prevent one's children from becoming crack addicts is
elitist? Or whether trying to spare another family the hardship and
misery that comes from a gambling-addicted parent is elitist?

Our
political leaders would serve us much better if they took a hard look
at, and exercised political leadership on a just tax policy. They wet
their pants when they are accused of increasing taxes. Yet they take
credit for the police and fire protection, education, roads, and
services on which our wellbeing depends but that only taxes can pay for.

Although
Massachusetts is seventh highest among all the states in per capita
personal income, we are in the bottom half in the amount of taxes that
we pay as a share of that income. Our problem isn't so much that our
flat income tax is too low or too high. Our problem is that our income
tax is flat.

We demand that the poorer that people are, the
greater percentage of their income they pay in taxes. Joining the 34
other states that ask their citizens to support their government based
on ability to pay would not only increase economic justice. It would
increase our capacity to avoid the kind of fiscal catastrophe that we
now confront.

But that would require political leaders with courage, moral fiber, and a sense of justice.