Culver and Harkin
Last spring, the governor signed into law a legislative bill that banned smoking in nearly all public places in the state, but noticably exempted from the list of public places were the 17 state-licensed casinos. And what possible justification has been presented to the public to explain this casino exemption? To this day, still nothing. That's because there isn't one. But casinos have a lot of campaign dough to toss at the mostly Democrats in power so Iowans are still allowed to light up on gaming floors, even those owned by municipalities.Governor Chet Culver was asked about this graft (my phrasing, likely not the reporter's) today in Des Moines, and "the Big Lug" says there isn't likely to be any change in the prohibition measure in the coming year. "I think it's more likely that we'll leave it alone for a while," he said. "I think most Iowans believe it's a good balance right now."
Wrong. Most would like a full ban, and many others want the ban lifted, but no one thinks it's a good "balance" to exclude almost only casinos unless that person has his or her hand in the till.
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One of our state's other "progressive" beacons is Senator Tom Harkin. Today, the Des Moines Register reports that Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, had helped the U.S. Department of Agriculture funnel $8 million to Agriprocessors in Postville four years ago to pay for a new sewage treatment plant for the meatpacker that has devastated almost everything in its path. Harkin's spokesperson says the move was designed to save jobs in Postville, but this year's headlines have given us an idea of the quality of those packing jobs.
In the Register piece, USDA officials say it's not unusual for the department to provide this type of help, but in Postville, we have ourselves a 100%, unblemished corporate giveaway. It wasn't a sewage plant for the community of Postville, it was one that served only the packing plant. A spokesperson says that the Agriprocessors sewage project has claimed $7.8 million of USDA (your) money over the last 5 years while a project in Harrison County finishes a distant second in Iowa at just $1.6 million. Iowa DNR officials say Postville supporters approached them with a request for funds as well, but they wisely denied the request because the sewage plant had only been designed to serve one customer.
Agriprocessors had already been forced to pay hundreds of thousands in fines to settle pollution complaints (not to mention, fines for workplace safety and wage violations) when they came hat-in-hand to Washington, but Senator Harkin gave them $8 million they were unqualified to have. The violations continued almost unabated for another half-decade-- and that putrid wastewater is probably still flowing into the local stream and down into the Yellow River.
posted by CM @ 6:51 PM
2 Comments:
Even if the exemption were removed, the Indian casinos would still be able to allow smoking. Thus the playing field between casinos would not be even and given that the state only collects taxes from non-Indian casinos it is a pretty easy decision to make. Before last year, there were very few smoke-free casinos and without the proper data it is tough to take a risk that could cost the state millions of dollars. However, smoke-free restaurants and bars is not a risk, the economic data is so overwhelmingly neutral and/or positive it is crazy. I believe Culver is correct that casinos will eventually make that decision on their own IF Illinois can stick to their guns and keep theirs smoke free. Pretty soon we will start to get some good data to compare the casinos from across the Mississippi to ours.
While everyone deserves to work in a smoke-free environment, having 99% of the population is pretty darn good. Iowa's law is one of the strongest in the nation. You can't even smoke on the outdoor patio of a restaurant or while sitting on a bench waiting for a table at Denny's on a Sunday morning. I'm still wrapping my head around that.
I would like to clarify. The state does collect taxes from Indian Casinos, just not from their profits. The state receives income taxes from any person's winnings (except if the person is a Native American), they receive the income taxes from those who work in the casino, and the state receives taxes from retail goods. So there is some profit but nothing like that from people's gambling losses.
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