Anne Marie Moy did a brave thing last Monday: she walked into the Democrats’ den to speak in favor of the Yes for Schools First ballot measure (Proposition A). She tried to convince members of the West County Dems, many of whom are retired teachers, that they should vote for Prop A, which would repeal the loss limits imposed by Missouri voters, restrict the number of casinos to those already built or being built, and increase the casino tax by one percent. Since repealing the loss limit would, according to her, increase school funding in Missouri by more than $100 million, you’d think the audience would have been applauding; instead, they were underwhelmed.

Ms. Moy argued that the loss limits Missouri imposed when it legalized gambling in 1992 have been ineffective at controlling problem gambling, ineffective at anything except driving customers away from Missouri casinos. Not only do gamblers dislike the loss limit system, they really dislike the long lines that result from checking on whether they’ve exceeded the limit. Moy asserted that our casinos lose 30 percent of otherwise would-be visitors to casinos in other states because of the loss limit. She further asserted that Iowa repealed its loss limit law and that studies showed no increase in problem gambling in that state.

Discouraging people from doing their gambling in Missouri translates into lost revenue for our state and our schools, she said. Right now, the state gets about $780 million a year in revenue from casinos, and $300 million of that goes to school funding. But the casinos are facing increasingly stiff competition from other states. In 1992, only two nearby states had casinos, one in each state. Now we’re surrounded by states with casinos, and Kansas City, KS is slated to bring four new casinos online soon.    

Moy said several times that repealing the loss limits would increase school funding by more than $100 million dollars, and she assured us that the funds would be subject to the “ultimate safeguard” of requiring an annual audit by the state auditor to assure that the funds were being used as intended.

When the Q & A session started, though, the first question got right to the heart of the objections many audience members had: “What guarantee is there that the additional money that comes in will not be reduced by a similar amount from the regular general revenue budget?” That was the voice of experience. I remember thinking in 1992, when I was still teaching, that if we legalized gambling, the legislature would just do a double shuffle with funds and schools would be no better off. That’s exactly what happened.

Moy’s response:

“We’ve written our measure to make it tamper proof. There are several layers of protection written into the measure to ensure that all of the funds generated by Proposition A will go into, first, a special fund called the “Schools First, Elementary and Secondary Education Fund” so we can easily track it and see where it’s going. … If it weren’t for that special fund, it would make it easier for the money to be losst in the shuffle or in some Jefferson City shell game. But by directing it to this fund, we can see where it’s going, we can track it, and if any legislator would want to attempt to do something improper with that money, they’d have to do it in the light of day. We would be able to see it and track it and call them on it.”

I could almost see the audience thinking: “Umm-hmm. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” And the woman sitting next to me said, “What? Fiddle with the will of the voters? You mean like they did when they overrode the conceal/carry legislation? Oh no, surely they’d never!”

Casinos have sunk more than three and half million dollars into passing Prop A, and another audience member, noting that taxing casinos is just another regressive way to take the burden off the wealthy and shift it to more vulnerable members of society, asked Ms. Moy who paid her salary. She had to admit that the casinos employ her. “I rest my case,” he said.

And a strong case it is.

But consider: if loss limits are kept, not only would we not get the $105-130 million for schools, but our casinos would continue to bleed and we’d get perhaps $45 million less than we’re used to. I guess we have to ask ourselves whether, in a state where a truly progressive income tax is about as likely any time soon as the Second Coming, is it wise to forfeit, say, $150 million a year for our schools?