When your state government goes into debt you hope it's for a good reason. So when citizens of New Jersey first heard about the state borrowing $125 million dollars they must have assumed a temporary loan was necessary to provide urgent medical care to poor children or the elderly.
Not quite.
The South Jersey Transportation Board will borrow $125 million from CoreStates Bank in order to attract a casino builder to town.
The pope recently drew a huge crowd to Paris. Other cities celebrate sports victories. Philadelphia recently hosted a summit on volunteerism. But the city fathers and mothers of Atlantic City recently decided that what the city really needs is to create a better environment for more gambling and casinos.
Gambling mogul Steve Wynn thinks that what Atlantic City needs is a new tunnel and roadway to bring his gamblers more conveniently to his slot machines and gaming tables. And what the gambling Gods want they get--at taxpayers' expense.
Once again ordinary citizens will subsidize a billionaire, as the total cost to the state of building the additional infrastructure is estimated at up to $220 million.
In order to build the new roadway and tunnel the state will also have to raze the homes in the last stable black neighborhood in Atlantic City.
Lets see...a government borrows money, taxes its citizens, and destroys the last stable black neighborhood in order to bring more gamblers to town. Makes perfect sense to us.
(Source: Philadelphia Inquirer.)
