http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575214382430311578.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLESecondNews
I'm not sure if non-subscribers can see the whole thing or not so can the first person who looks at it tell me?
Anyway, I think it only makes sense to start loosening up rules on some things that are based on morals because it just costs us money. Gambling was one of the things and I think another thing that could use more relaxed laws is marijuana.
So Mr. Strickland convened a Saturday morning meeting last June with Ms. Sabety and other staffers at his Columbus home. "We put a big whiteboard up and were going through the budget piece by piece," Mr. Strickland recalls.
A budget plan that lacked new revenue sources—like a tax increase or new gambling income—would have curbed assistance for Alzheimer's patients and mentally handicapped children, says Ms. Sabety. It also would have cut back a Medicaid program that provides oxygen tanks for chronically ill patients.
"When they put up oxygen on the board, I said, 'Stop. We've gone as far as we're going to go," Mr. Strickland says. Six days later, he submitted a budget plan to Ohio legislators that included installing video lottery machines in the state's seven horse-racing tracks—a move that he estimated would raise $851 million over two years.
Ohio's two United Methodist bishops—Mr. Strickland's superiors in the clergy—opposed the plan. It was politically risky, too, since Ohio voters had repeatedly rejected gambling.
Mr. Strickland pressed ahead. The legislature approved his lottery-machine plan in July. It was blocked in September, when the Ohio Supreme Court said the law's language must be approved by voters.
Meanwhile, in November, Ohioans voted to green-light a measure to build casinos in the state's four largest cities. Mr. Strickland had opposed the plan, saying the casinos represented "a very significant expansion of gambling activity."
Voters and politicians in Ohio used to slap down attempts to expand gambling in their state. But last week, many cheered as demolition crews razed an old auto-parts plant in Columbus to make way for a new casino.
Facing high unemployment and the aftermath of a $3.2 billion state-budget shortfall, Ohioans voted to allow casinos in November. Gov. Ted Strickland dropped his longtime opposition to video lottery machines, proposing to add them to racetracks to generate new tax revenue.
Ohio Bets Gambling Will Aid Coffers
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Jim Korpi for The Wall Street Journal
Artie Williams separated metals found in the cafeteria section of the Delphi Corp. automotive factory in Columbus, which is being demolished to make way for a new casino.
Loosening the Reins
See which states have made changes to restrictions on alcohol sales on Sunday, gambling or marijuana, or are planning to do so.
States in the Red
Most states have addressed or still face gaps in their budgets totaling $196 billion for fiscal year 2010, while tax revenue declined in the final quarter of 2009 in 39 of the states for which data is available.
"If I had not been confronted with these difficult circumstances, I would have obviously opposed expanding gambling in Ohio," says Mr. Strickland.
Nationwide, the public-funding crisis has led many state and local leaders to similarly reverse course. Hampered by withering funds for law enforcement, health care and other public services, a growing number of officials are condoning activities and businesses they'd be apt to restrict in better economic times.
For fiscal 2011, 38 states project combined budget shortfalls of $89 billion, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan policy research group. Thirty-one states expect budget gaps totaling $73.5 billion in 2012. As a result, says Todd Haggerty, an analyst at the group, lawmakers are "trying anything and everything in order to bring their budgets into balance."
Oakland, Calif., began taxing sales of medical marijuana last year. Now at least a half- dozen states are weighing measures to allow some legal pot sales. Others have loosened decades-long restrictions on Sunday alcohol sales. And about a dozen, like Ohio, have discussed or passed plans to ease restrictions on gambling.
