Dave Alpert: I Know Where You’re Going with That

Last night, on the TV news, I saw Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, annoyed with resistance to his campaign to bring casinos to MA, say, “If the legislature has any better ideas, I want to hear them.”  This, of course, is referring to a plan to stimulate the Massachusetts enconomy and bring much needed financial assistance to towns and cities.  My thought at the time: I can’t believe I voted for this guy.  Confronted with a slumping economy, people fleeing the state towards the lower priced regions, etc., the best he can come up with is legalized gambling??  He really has no more ideas? 

I have never been to a casino, and I have no real objection apart for concern about the mental health of our communities.  Considering all the hard working residents already blowing their week’s wages on scratch tickets at the neighborhood convenience store, I’m not sure how wise it is to bring casinos a Charlie Ticket ride away.  But this isn’t the point.   It’s that The Commonwealth has real economic challenges, and I’d like to hear some real solutions other than legalized gambling.  Hmmm…. Or maybe not….

On the off-chance the legislature doesn’t have any more bright ideas, I have one.  We should go with an entire “Legalize It” campaign.  We should legalize things like drugs, hunting endangered species, prostitution, child pornography, dog fighting.  We could tax it all at 20%.  That would stimulate the service industry, too.  Hotels would pop up everywhere.  New jobs would be created.  With all that money, we could rent the US military to guard our borders (adding to the health of the US economy as well).  That could be the state moto on our license plates.  We could Sell Massachusetts Legalize It! t-shirts at Logan.  And if the federal government doesn’t like it, we would have enough resources to fight.  After all, we’re busy screwing things up in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not even the United States could afford or win a three-front war.

Wow.  Deval.  Maybe this is a bright idea after all! It’s on!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Television, Massachusetts, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.