TALLAHASSEE - The mail last week brought to our house, and perhaps to yours, a brochure with pictures of four of the cutest kids you will ever see. It was a pitch to vote for slot machines on Nov. 2.
It couldn't have been any sleazier. Some might say it would be less so if they had been touting legalized brothels.
Horsewhipping is too nice for anyone who exploits children for political pornography like that. Since I can't print what I really think of such people, let's settle for unprincipled, despicable and loathsome.
Not one, not two, but three enormous lies represent the campaign for Amendment 4.
The first lie is that it's for the kids. It's actually about enriching the South Florida race tracks, one of them owned by the Isle of Capri casino conglomerate, that have invested some $14-million so far into getting slot machines for themselves. Education is a pretext, nothing more.
The second lie is that the state taxes on slot machine revenues, if the Legislature decides to levy any, "must supplement public education." Yes, that's what the text of the amendment says, but it's no more enforceable than the nonbinding promise that was made for the lottery 16 years ago.
Before the lottery, education got 59.7 percent of the Legislature's discretionary spending. This year, it's 50.5 percent. The difference, some $2-billion, is more than twice the lottery's annual yield for education. That's a deficit, not a supplement.
It is true that there have been insatiable demands from Medicaid and other quarters. For another way to look at it, compare the $8-billion in tax cuts on Jeb Bush's watch to the $5.6-billion in net lottery revenue during that time.
The lottery was only a year and a half old when a Florida Chamber study caught legislators with their fingers in the till. They eventually earmarked some of the lottery money to school construction and the Bright Futures scholarships - which they have been scheming ever since to cut - but the damage was done.
Because the Florida Supreme Court does not know log-rolling when it sees it, Amendment 4 ostensibly requires that any slot machine taxes go to education enhancement. For one year, that would be true. Afterwards, the money would go in one pocket and out the other, just as the lottery proceeds did, with little chance that any Florida court would dare to stop it. Telling a legislature what to spend is the final frontier of judicial activism.
The smart people who know this include the state law enforcement union that endorsed Amendment 4 the other day. They want, and expect, their cut of the money.
The third big lie is that slots could be contained to seven existing parimutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. That's like telling cancer to stay put.
Florida has 19 other race tracks and jai-alai frontons that would want, and expect, their cut of the action. They are accustomed to getting what they want from the Legislature, notably ever lower tax rates and ever more profitable card rooms.
Amendment 4 is their camel's nose. They would not need another constitutional amendment. The only reason they need this one is to circumvent the governor's veto. The only reason it begins with just those two counties is the belief that, as Sen. Steve Geller told the Palm Beach Post last week, "Everyone north of Orlando thinks Dade and Broward counties are Sodom and Gomorrah . . ." In other words, they are expendable.
There might be a civil war with South Florida tracks striving to protect their slot machine monopoly, but sheer numbers would favor the others. So would their campaign contributions.
Keep in mind that our notoriously invertebrate Legislature would also be setting the tax rate. This is why the propaganda says Amendment 4 "could" - not "would" - yield $500-million a year. That's the one lie they're careful not to tell.
Whatever slots might pay, Florida can't afford the price, especially not with so many honest sources, such as stadium skyboxes, remaining to be taxed.
The New York Times Magazine May 9 illustrated the insidious ways in which modern electronic slot machines are crafted to captivate their prey. The article described a machine designer watching intently and muttering "gotcha" as a player took the bait. "No other form of gambling manipulates the human mind as beautifully as these machines," said a psychiatrist who studies gambling treatments.
What Gov. LeRoy Collins once said of quickie divorces and legalized gambling still applies: "What we lose in income, we shall gain in integrity."
The Amendment 4 propaganda argues that Florida already has slot machines, unregulated and untaxed, on cruise ships and Indian reservations. But those, at least, are limited as to time and place, and Florida could ban the boats if only the Legislature had any guts.
Coming sooner or later, if Amendment 4 passes: Sodom and Gomorrah, 24/7, to a race track near you.
