Vote NO on 94, 95, 96 and 97

Another excellent summary on 94 -97, the rich get richer - there rest of us pay the bill for it. An irony this article does miss though, these very rich so-called 'Indians' STILL get free health care services provided by the American taxpayer. I am not talking about the dis-enrolled Indians - they get squat. I am talking bout these newly made millionaires, they get free health care in their tribal clinics paid by YOU and ME.

Indian casino measures help rich tribes, but nobody else
NO ON PROPS. 94-97: WORKERS AND NEIGHBORS DESERVE A BETTER DEAL
By Enrique L. Fernandez

The Indian gambling initiatives on Tuesday's ballot are all about an old, familiar story. The rich get richer. While the rest of us? We lose.

Four Southern California tribes are behind these deals that would give them 17,000 new slot machines. That's enough slot machines to fill 12 Las Vegas casinos. That's enough slot machines to make those four tribes spend $92 million and counting to get us to vote yes on their deals.

Propositions 94 through 97 are great deals - for those four tribes, Pechanga, Morongo, Sycuan and Agua Caliente. But for California taxpayers, for workers at those casinos, for the communities around those casinos and the environment - in short, for everybody but those four tribes, we need a new, fairer deal.

The 17,000 slot machines would effect one of the largest expansions of gambling in U.S. history. When we originally said yes to Indian gaming, less than 10 years ago, I think most of us thought we were helping all Native Americans in California, and help was needed. I don't think most of us expected it would turn into this - that we are now asked to vote to make four wealthy, powerful tribes even more wealthy and more powerful.

Now, back to that $92 million those four tribes have been spending: Mostly, they've been using that money to buy ads to tell us how the state of California will get money from this - so we should vote yes. But that turns out to be just another sales pitch. The state's impartial Legislative Analyst's Office says that any money the state would get from these deals would be less than one half of 1 percent of the state's annual general fund. That's next to nothing - and certainly no cure for the state's budget troubles.

But even that money we may never see. These four tribes wrote into their deals language that eliminates any outside independent accounting of the tribes' books, language that means they will decide how much money they give the state. The state can look at the tribes' math and check the addition. It can't go back and check the books that math is based on.

And here's an irony. These wealthy tribes, which already make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, squeeze still more money out of their own lowest-paid employees. A study of the Agua Caliente casino found that its minimum-wage workers (and there are plenty - in the kitchen and the bars) make less money now than they did in 2002, when you adjust the numbers for inflation.

And at that same casino, many of the families of those workers have to get their health care through taxpayer-funded public health programs, because the casino's health insurance isn't affordable.

Here's another irony. Most tribes in California have no gaming at all, or else they only have small operations. Even though the Big 4 tribes would make billions of dollars in profits if they get these new slot machines, they didn't offer to share a dime of those new profits with even the poorest tribes (and poor tribes are very poor). In fact, under these deals, the existing revenue-sharing with those tribes will end up being cut. And small tribes near the Big 4, with small gaming operations, are liable to be swept away by these massive new casino operations. Also, if you happen to live near one of those casinos - whether you're a person, a plant or an animal - you're affected by the weakening of environmental protections in these deals.

The only good news is that we get a chance to turn down these deals. A ", no" vote tells Sacramento and the tribes they need to go back and negotiate better deals. Instead of a windfall for just four wealthy, powerful tribes, we can get a fairer deal for all tribes, more money for the state, more protection for the areas around these casinos and more protection for the men and women who work in them. We can and should do better. But to do that, we have to first vote "no" on Propositions 94 through 97, the unfair gambling deals.