Proposition A on the November ballot would repeal Missouri’s casino loss limit, prohibit additional gambling boats in the state and slightly increase the rate of taxation paid to the state, providing more money for state coffers but not necessarily for education, as promoters proclaim.

The proposed statute does the right thing regarding loss limits and the tax rate. Missouri’s law limiting the amount any gambler can lose to $500 every two hours is the only one of its kind in the nation and is misguided in principle. Why should the state tell a consumer how much to spend at a chosen establishment? Moreover, the loss limit depresses the amount of business casinos can do and the consequent volume of tax revenue they produce. Coupled with a slight increase in the tax rate, the state auditor estimates the new law could generate substantial new revenue for state and local governments.

But voters beware. The proposal, called the Schools First Initiative, is promoted with a mighty spin. It contains extensive language indicating new money should go to education, but nothing in this or any other law can prescribe how legislatures craft their budgets. New millions would be generated by the law, and if it passes, voters will have approved language describing the education earmark, giving a certain amount of political incentive for legislators. But as they craft tight future annual budgets, you can be sure they will shift some of the new money into general revenue to be used elsewhere. Some new money will be produced for education, but despite its fancy language, the passage of Proposition A cannot legally mandate any such thing.

You wouldn’t know it from the misleading way the proposition is being promoted. Passage might make sense, but not because it produces certain money for education.

Years ago promoters did a similar deed when they promised voters that, by approving a state lottery initiative, they were providing new money for education merely because the proposal’s language said so. The tactic was useful then and probably will be useful this time around.

Today’s bill, initiated and funded by owners of currently operating casinos, forbids future competition by freezing the number of licenses the state can issue. The state gaming commission thinks this is a good idea, but any lover of free markets has doubts. Promoters say limiting the number of boats will allow Missouri casinos to compete more strongly against new casinos opening in Kansas because too many boats on this side of the line will weaken Missouri competitors, a proposition usually left to competitors with free access to the playing field.

But the casino industry is a strange anomaly, subject to extraordinary regulation by a state board empowered to make special rules. The original enabling constitutional amendment itself imposed curious limitations on where and how casinos can operate.

When this initiative was first launched, I opposed it, largely because it is being promoted by current operators to freeze out new competition and also because its promise of new money for education is misleading. Because it encompasses other beneficial changes in the law, it’s a trade-off. Financially it will help with changes that also make sense just in principle.

So I hereby throw this wriggling kettle of fish before yon voters, who by some unforeseeable mixture of thinking will decide whether it should pass. Because the funding earmark issue is too nuanced, the license limitation issue sure to evoke mixed reaction and the new revenue appealing, I expect Proposition A to pass handily. Give credit to its authors for clever craftsmanship.

If it weren’t for the fact that the TV and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn’t get any exercise at all.

- Joey Adams, comedian

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