Tornoe’s Toon: Christie Takes Atlantic City
If you didn’t catch the news yesterday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is pushing for a plan that would allow the state to takeover Atlantic City’s casinos and entertainment district within a year, and remodel the city to become a Las Vegas of the East:
Christie hopes to prioritize using casino tax revenue to fund Atlantic City’s blighted areas. He said he doesn’t expect the proposed changes to affect the tax structure for Atlantic City’s casinos. But gaming enforcement, which is funded by the casinos, would be streamlined, he said, perhaps following the Las Vegas model of bringing the Division of Gaming Enforcement under the Casino Control Commission.
I think Christie is making the right move here. Atlantic City’s government has long been run by corrupt, inept individuals who cared about holding onto power and paying their friends than actually fixing the city’s terrible reputation. And the talk of attracting amenities such as a NASCAR track and amusement parks for families is definitely the direction the city should have went 15 years ago.
However, there is a lesson here for the Tea Baggers and closed-minded conservatives that think all government is bad, and that big government will doom us all. Isn’t Trenton making a power grab over the home-rule control of a local municipality the very example of big government?
I guess not when a Republican poster boy does it.
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Tags: Atlantic City, Chris Christie, Chris Christie Superman, Lorenzo Langford, New Jersey, state takeover, Trenton
I’m of two minds as well. 1) When a Republican does it, mad socialist power grabs and huge deficits are fine.
2) The money from the casinos never seemed to make a dent in the city. It has been 34 and it is still a shithole, just a shithole with casinos. They need to do something.
well it IS new jersey and ya cant polish a turd.
anyone find it odd that a Republican of the free market mentality is trying to get the state to take over AC because they think they can do a better job?
They can do a better job because AC is so incompetent. I say let the market handle it. It can do better than either.
All true, DV, but I’m not going to oppose a good idea just because it involves Republicans being hypocrites. Maybe if a Republican does it and it works, they’ll stop demagoguing that point. Is there an emoticon for half-snark?
“I say let the market handle it. It can do better than either.”
Which is all the proof necessary to demonstrate that you should always say as little as possible. Fill in the blank: “Better to ___ and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Conservative concern is vastly less pointed toward state government control over city governments and massively targeted against government control of your private life. So, Rob, your comment is incorrect. What you and I need to fight against is the corruption of “Big.” Big Business, Big Finance and Big Government. Why have all the Big financial firms already created new offices and units for their new derivative investment businesses? They wrote the financial “reform” bill with Obama and the Democrats. SAY IT WITH ME: THEY WROTE THE BILL! “It’s a put-on. It’s an eminence front!”
The big firms will still sell some derivatives directly and shift the majority of their business to brokering derivative sales while hedge funds like Highbridge Capital owned by JP Morgan ($21 billion) and sovereign wealth funds will do most of the direct selling. Costs will be passed along to you and me in a variety of new banking/credit card/debit card/stock brokerage fees. It is NOT a coincidence that financial industry campaign contributions to Democrats this year have exceeded $24 Million. Feel free to respond with typical liberal whining about ‘bad Republicans” yadda yadda and when you do you close your eyes to the party in power that is a tool for Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Finance, etc.
the party in power that is a tool for Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Finance, etc.
Who is the bigger tool: Democrats who pass flawed reform bills, or Repubs who don’t pass any?
Is a pig with lipstick better than a pig without lipstick?
anon @ 12:54
“Forget the politicians.
The politicians are just put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t.
You have no choice. You have owners. They OWN you. ” – George Carlin
I agree with your sentiment, Rick. Wall Street helped manipulate and water down the Financial Reform Bill, and Insurance Companies were forceful in getting what they wanted out of Health Care Reform.
And I totally agree that Barack Obama is as much a tool for big business as his predecessor. For all the talk of change, who is Obama? A half-white big business succubus who doubled-down on the war in Afghanistan, refused to freeze spending on the defense department and has moved to the right on nearly every piece of his proposed legislation. Conservatives should be in love with this guy!
However, that’s not what typical Republicans (generalizing) are talking about when they decry “big government.” They love big business and think the government, with all it’s bureaucracy and needless regulation, just needs to get out of the way and allow the “free market” to run its course.
Reality, of course, needs to be somewhere in the middle. Business needs to be allowed the freedom to grow and create jobs, but it also needs a watchdog to protect the interests of consumers.
Unfortunately, arguing for a reasonable middle won’t get you booked on too many talk shows. And having two political parties in the pocket of big business doesn’t help much either.
Half-white? You really think that’s the half that was harder to get elected?
arguing for a reasonable middle
Now there’s the problem, right there.
Instead of arguing for “a reasonable middle,” how about just “reasonable?”
What the hell is the value of meeting in the middle, when the wingnuts keep moving their goalpost out to the right, based on documented lies?
What about rational policy based on facts?
Rick forgets the lobbyists and CEOs of Wall Street meeting with Boehner after the finreg conference to pronounce their undying love and fealty to the GOP if the Republicans would only kill the bill?
Boston Brownie himself hankered after Dodd and peeled off the 19 billion in big bank assessments just prior to voting against the bill (I don’t remember if he actually voted against it in the end).
What, you didn’t realize phony populism is the new GOP rallying cry? Quick quiz — when was the last time Republicans ignored a reasonably healthy stock market to cry about a lack of jobs?
Rob Tornoe: “I totally agree that Barack Obama is as much a tool for big business as his predecessor. ”
Rob, I can’t believe the powers that run this blog haven’t fired you for saying such blasphemous things.
Good for you! Just make sure cassandra_m doesn’t poison your soup.
This maybe a tarp type buy-out, the casino,s in A.C. have lost their last big advantage, they are no longer the only place to play table games, they are doing all-right now because it summer at the beach, but come the fall thier already slowing business might take a big hit, rumors have been circulating that the hilton and resorts where closing soon anyway, so this might be a bail-out that benefits the casino owners more than a big plus for state tax payers, one thing repubs are good at is coming to the aid of big business.
Half-white?
@Geezer: If Barack Obama marketed himself as the half-white, pro-business tax cutter that he is, more people in the Tea Party would support him.
@ Rob: LOL as if they ever could get past the other half.
Do you really think his half-whiteness has any effect on his policies? Or that he had any control of it? He made no secret of being half-white. His whole public persona springs from an autobiography that was mainly about his self-reflection on it.
The rest of it, sure, get on his case. But his race is something he had no control of, and I seriously doubt he’s more pro-corporate because he finds half his being uncontrollably supportive of “the man.”
Or maybe my sarcasm gauge is simply out of order.