The Bingo Generation (Opinion)
by October 6, 2008 12:00 am 90 views
Just when you thought politics couldn’t get any more cynical, you read this quote:
“The once proud American fighting men from America’s finest generation, who were not defeated at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima or Normandy … stand defeated by legislation.”
Was Gene McVay of Fort Smith talking about some new bill to strip WWII veterans of their VA benefits or Social Security? Is someone trying to rescind Purple Hearts and Silver Stars?
No, it’s far worse than that. McVay, legislative chairman for the American Legion of Arkansas, was at the state Capitol to stand up against the 1-cent tax on bingo, which threatens the Greatest Generation in a way neither Hitler nor Tojo could.
Legislators, please: Don’t change anything until there’s more data on actual bingo play and the charities it supposedly supports. Right now, we have no way of knowing how many of the 110 million bingo cards sold to operators in the first nine months of legal bingo – almost 40 for every man, woman and child in the state – have actually been played and how many have been stockpiled. And the early data suggest that only about 6 percent of the proceeds is going to charity while 70 percent goes to the winners.
And whatever you do, don’t give up state regulation of bingo.
What elected sheriff could possibly stand up to a rhetorician like Gene McVay?