Frank's Online Gambling Bill Has a Chance

Posted:17.05.2009, 06:48 Frank's Online Gambling Bill Has a Chance

Frank's Online Gambling Bill Has a Chance
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/05/franks_online_gambling_bill_ha.php

Here's an article that says Barney Frank's bill to legalize and regulate online gambling has a chance of passing, largely because it's being coupled with another bill to raise tax revenue from it.
Rep. Barney Frank might have come up snake eyes in his previous efforts to legalize Internet gambling but he's stepping up to the table again with a bill that would authorize the Treasury Department to regulate online wagering.

And there's another shooter in his corner: Jim McDermott , D‑Wash., who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, introduced a bill (HR 2268) that would provide for the collection of associated tax revenues.
Both bills were introduced May 6.
How much revenue?
McDermott's chief of staff, Mike DeCesare, said that over 10 years, the revenue bill could put $43 billion in federal coffers and even more in states'. It would establish a 2 percent tax on deposits made into Internet wagering accounts.

Barney Frank rightly says that the real reason for this is liberty, but the tax revenue is a healthy plus and if that's what it takes to convince people to vote for it, so be it. And look at this idiotic reaction from an anti-gambling foe in Congress:
Robert W. Goodlatte , R-Va., who supports those restrictions, said May 6 that Frank's measure not only guts that 2006 law but makes online gambling explicitly legal.

"Apparently, Rep. Frank believes that [Treasury Secretary] Timothy Geithner can do a better job at enforcing our nation's criminal laws than the Department of Justice, which is scary considering [Geithner's] track record on complying with the tax code," he said.
First, note the naked ad hominem. Geithner's tax problem has nothing at all to do with the issue, it's just a cheap shot and a real (as opposed to the fake kind that the ignorant are always accusing people of making when they get insulted) ad hominem. But even without that, it's a stupid statement. The issue isn't which agency can do a better job of enforcing criminal laws, the issue is whether online gambling should be subject to criminal laws at all.