Business Leaders, Legislators Tout Casino Bill [VIDEO]

Legislators, business owners, and a labor leader held a press conference on March 26 to promote a coming before the later this week. The supporters, including Rep. David Campbell, D-Nashua, say that if the state does not approve casino gambling, it will lose jobs, millions in revenue, and the economy would continue to be stagnant.

The proposal calls for the establishment of four casinos in the Granite State. Revenue from the casinos would be used to reduce business taxes, which legislators suggest will make the state more competitive and create jobs.

House Ways & Means Chairman Stephen Stepanek said the proposal would have long-term benefits for the state for years to come.

“This is the most significant jobs and tax cut bill our Legislature has seen in years,” said Stepanek, R-Milford.

On the other side of the political aisle, Campbell agreed with Stepanek and said the decision by the state of Massachusetts to move forward on casinos and Maine thinking about it too, changed the state of the question. He said New Hampshire is expected to lose about $100 million in revenue each biennium when those casinos get built.

“Doing nothing in New Hampshire is no longer an option,” he said. “Doing nothing also means it has a very significant impact on New Hampshire’s state budget and our economy.

Campbell said that the had done a crime study and found no significant increase in crime in any of those states that have casinos, an issue raised by opponents. He added that while there may be an increase in societal ills, those problems were potentially coming either way, since New Hampshire residents would be going to Massachusetts casinos. The difference though, he said, is that if the casino bill is approved, the New Hampshire would get millions of dollars to address those societal issues.

Former state Senate President Arthur Klemm, R-Windham, who was also a lottery commissioner and owns a retail establishment in the town, said more than 60 percent of all lottery sales come from the southern tier of the state, from Manchester to the southern border. When the casinos are built in Massachusetts, this business will drop, he claimed. Klemm noted that the state was still feeling the sting of the 10 percent tax on lottery winnings that was recently repealed. Schools in Rockingham County lost $2 million in revenue and yet many of his customers still bought tickets in Massachusetts, thinking that the taxes were lower there, Klemm said.

Howie Glynn of the Salem Historical Society, which has used charitable gambling to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate a train station there, also praised the legislation and gambling as a way of doing good deeds without raising taxes.

Other attendees to the press conference touting the business tax cuts as a motivator to create jobs. Peter McNamara, the president of the NH Auto Dealers Association, Joe Faro, the owner of Tuscan Kitchen in Salem, and Joe Casey, the president of New Hampshire Building Trades Council, all commended the bill.

Stepanek was later asked if any of the supporters of the bill had any specific data to show whether the lowering of the business tax rates would actually create jobs and he said, “No.”

McNamara was also asked about how many new jobs would be created in the auto sector and he said that the economic climate stipulated what individual companies would do. He added that sales were up a bit but the current business taxes were keeping companies from bringing on new employees and additional inventory.

Faro said that any time there is a reduction in taxes, businesses reinvest the money into the companies. The opposite is also true, he said.

“When you’re overtaxed, it makes it very burdensome to take those profit dollars and put them back into the business,” he said. “If you’re not reinvesting, you’re not creating jobs.”

Casey added while there was no guarantee that the casino companies would hire New Hampshire workers over other workers for jobs, he said they were working on agreements to ensure that. He added that New Hampshire workers tend to be “a lot less expensive.”