Well it is New Jersey so why would anyone be suprised that someone is getting a kickback?

So some of the money was spent to build an IMAX movie theater, 13,000 more hotel rooms, a nightclub, etc. Don't all of those operations create permanent jobs and create a permanent increase in the tax base, not to mention increasing potential incoming tourism? Isn't it possible that this is an appropriate way to reinvest the money in the city?

It reminds me of the maxim about the difference between giving someone a fish and teaching someone to fish. Sure, they could have just doled out the money and it would be gone, poof. Or they could create permanent, revenue-generating, job-generating infrastructure. Maybe they did the right thing.

/At least I'm willing to consider the possibility.

Yet since 1993, the state agency charged with doling out the casino money to needy areas in Atlantic City and throughout New Jersey has been funneling some of that cash back to the casinos themselves.

Casinos in Jersey handling money in a sketchy manner? Color me shocked.

No, that's preposterous.

There couldn't possibly be any kind of impropriety in New Jersey governance.

Because, well, that's just ridiculous.

/grew up in Jersey, maybe, along with Rhode Island, the most corrupt state in the nation. And, yes, I'm including Louisiana.

So: 20% of the fund went back to the casinos and 80% went to the hood. From what the article described, everything around is completely blighted and crap.

If total devastation is what 80% of that fund buys, I don't think another 20% is going to help improve that situation one bit. They've got hard core ghetto problems that casino money isn't going to help with.

Two words: It's Jersey.

WTF do you expect? California?

/We don't have a single corrupt politician in Delaware
//Not a single one

The U.S. and the U.N. is up in arms because Sudan is siphoning off oil funds rather than recycling them back to education and development projects, per agreements before drilling began. Get Condy on this one ... unless she's on the take too.

90 Minute IPA: /We don't have a single corrupt politician in Delaware
//Not a single one

"Or imagine, being magically whisked away to, Delaware! ...hi, i'm in Delaware..."

Dawn Ford, who lives in the same struggling neighborhood as Cox, is unimpressed. The 2000 Census found nearly 1 in 4 of Atlantic City's 40,500 residents living in poverty.

"They want to move people like us out of here," she said. "Give me a job, somewhere to go."

not how life works honey. jobs aren't just given out. people do not give you places to go.

The truth is until they can get enough places fixed up that property values go up enough to attract responsible citizens to the area, that the areas outside the casinos will remain sketchy. Of course then it cries of gentrification will be screamed from those folks that want all that money pumped into revamping the neighborhoods. No matter how much money is poured into redevelopment of those hoods, the current broke ass residents will never benefit. They are unemployable disasters. All the money should go to local schools and community centers to hopefully try to rescue the next generation. Then maybe they can be employable by the casinos, then they could afford to move into some of the new housing thats being built.

aaarkieboy

Common sense is the reason. I think the guy in the article said it best, "That money is not being spent in the spirit of the original legislation."

The law may be stupid (I don't think it is, but whatever), but it is effectively being broken. Not only that, but what is happening screams of corruption. Gambling towns are known for seediness and corruption, and Atlantic City is a model example.

Do the AC casinos need help? Perhaps, but IMO if they can't exist without the "aid" they are receiving, they don't deserve to exist. Everyone knows Vegas is 100x better than the dump known as Atlantic City.

wiitarded

jsteiner78

"They want to move people like us out of here," she said. "Give me a job, somewhere to go."

not how life works honey. jobs aren't just given out. people do not give you places to go.

...

*ahem*

From TFA, a few sentences above your quote:

These are the neighborhoods that the state requires casinos to help by setting aside a portion of their revenue for development projects.

In other words, giving her "somewhere to go" is precisely what this law was intended to do.

Not defending the system, since it really doesn't seem to be working But it's disingenuous to be condescending to someone just because they're trying to make the system they've been given work for them.

Yeesh. I know the State sponsored cleanups are usually train wrecks and all. And the semantics Nazis can whimper about her use of the word "give," but we've gotten to the point that the "personal responsibility" crowd is actually criticizing someone for wanting a job :P

Well they, blew up the chicken man...

2007-03-11 10:30:43 PM aaarkieboy

Don't all of those operations create permanent jobs and create a permanent increase in the tax base, not to mention increasing potential incoming tourism? Isn't it possible that this is an appropriate way to reinvest the money in the city?

So shouldn't the government just not tax in the first place?
That is how they create dependency.

/The government breaks your legs, and then expects you to be grateful that they gave you crutches.

It's been shown over and over again that lotteries and casino gaming make more problems than their revenues solve. No matter what its proponents say, the revenue is a de-facto part of the state's general fund, and any "slotting" just a paperwork slight of hand.

Invariably what you end up with is a very inefficient tax on the stupid, and some very rich gangsters.

Atlantic City blew it from the beginning by requiring the casinos to have so much restaurant and store space based on the casino floor size. Making them self contained deters people from spreading out into the city to spend money. So there's the line of casinos on the boardwalk, and slums a block or two away. At least they got rid of the projects coming in on the expressway..

And sure the casinos created a lot of jobs, but very few casino workers actually live in A.C.

AC=Garbage dump with neon.

As to Delaware...Look in Biden's family tree or the vacation house in NJ.

/lives 20 miles South of the dump called AC