Anthony Vatterott

The Missouri Gaming Commission will be making its decision regarding the licensure of Pinnacle’s time-worn Admiral Casino, one of only two Downtown St. Louis casino riverboats (the only one on the St. Louis side of the river) and one of Pinnacle’s three offerings in the Metro area. 

The commission has criticized Pinnacle’s handling of the Admiral with a claim that Pinnacle intends to “hold on to the gaming license for the admiral with no intention of improving its operations”

This apparent decision comes on the coat-tails of a possibly related hearing by the Commission in November ‘09 of the potential development of the Riverview Casino in North St. Louis.

How may these two decisions be related other than Old Business preceeding New Business in gaming commission board meetings?

You may remember in 2008 a certain proposition A on the Missouri voting ballot that removed the $500-per-2 hours loss limit at Missouri casinos with a stipluation and most likely the large reason for its passing: Prop A would give money to Missouri Education based on a percentage of revenues (estimates totalled in the hundreds of millions of dollars). 

The actual amount of revenues generated for Missouri Education was far less than the estimates.

 Also in that ballot iniative was a requirement to curb the addition of new casinos not already in development.  So now, the only way to build a new casino is to get rid of an old one. 

Evidently they believe the Admiral qualifies as an “old one.”

Compared to the swanky and (personal preference) amazing Lumiere Place, and the newly developed River City Casino, it does look a little tattered.  But some revenues are better than none revenues, right?  You would think the State would  have some other plan to recoup any lost revenues.  Like perhaps building a nother casino up north.

For the record this takes revenues out of St. Louis City and puts them in the County, and Mayor Francis Slay is against the idea to remove the Admiral.

The word in the Beltway is that the President is talking about a freeze of discretionary spending in the near future, for a period of 3 years.

Discretionary spending amounts to about 1/3 of the government budget and just over 6% of GDP. To freeze discretionary spending also does not mean eliminate discretionary spending. It means to continue discretionary spending at current levels, sans increases in budgetary amounts.  Still, we’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars.

Could this proposition be the counterbalance to the President’s Healthcare Reform agenda that has made progress in the House and Senate and now faces filibuster by Republicans since Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat was passed on to a Republican this month?

The prospect of limiting government spending is a traditional conservative concept; something Republicans may buy into in exchange for a handful of votes to move Healthcare Reform forward.

This approach to political bargaining is superficially opposite to the method with which votes were gained to support recent healthcare Reform bills in the House and Senate. When looking behind the political curtain, it appears that what a proposed freeze in discretionary spending does is bring all parties closer to the center of a political spectrum on at least one issue.

This appears to be Obama’s attempt to create common ground among partisans. In addition, since discretionary spending is appropriated by House and Senate sub-committee, a proposed freeze in discretionary spending brings negotiations on both that issue and healthcare into a potentially more manageable “meeting room” sized series of discussions. This may neutralize grandstanding and focus on decision-making at a level that dismisses the concept of “sweeping reform” and creates targeted, segmented and more critical changes in spending and healthcare within each sub-committee.

It appears politically to be a Plan B in reaction to the loss of a Supermajority in the Senate needed to limit Republican dispute of the eventual vote on healthcare reform.

It may be difficult for Republicans to deny the attraction of a spending freeze.  Isn’t this exactly what the American people did to sustain the past few years of economic downturn?  This attitude of cutting cost and tightening the belt (or at least maintaining it)  appeals to the conservative mindset.  But is it too little too late?  I am sure many irate fiscal conservatives see this as a thinly veiled appeasement.

It may only take a few extra heads to turn the vote on healthcare and, in a political environment that slowly trends towards the power of the independent voter, Healthcare Reform appears to be more a game of winning inches and yards than a simple groundswell of grassroots reform.