Free Republic

A consulting firm will present its findings Tuesday on the potential impact of expanded gambling in Maryland as lawmakers continue to discuss possible legislation to add table games and a sixth casino in the state. Representatives from PricewaterhouseCoopers are expected to testify at the second meeting of the state’s Work Group to Consider Gaming Expansion, a panel of lawmakers and executive-branch officials charged with deciding whether the General Assembly should pursue a gambling expansion bill at an expected special session next month. State officials say the panel’s recommendation will be largely based on the firm’s findings. Lawmakers have said the...

ANNAPOLIS — The General Assembly adjourned Monday night after a chaotic closing session in which members failed to pass a set of proposed tax increases or a bill to expand gambling in the state. Lawmakers passed a balanced budget and hoped to pass accompanying bills raising income taxes and shifting teacher-pension costs onto counties, but they ran out of time before the assembly’s required midnight adjournment. The House attempted to extend the session by passing a resolution shortly before midnight, but the Senate did not address the measure in time. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. said he was...

Pennsylvania will have to furlough 1,000 state workers if the legislature does not legalize table games at casinos by the end of this week, the governor and his secretary of administration said on Monday. The furloughs will be needed to help close a $250 million hole in the budget, Democratic Governor Ed Rendell said in a statement. Pennsylvania currently allows only slot machines at its new casinos, which compete with New Jersey's Atlantic City's resorts that have offered table games for decades.

Following an announcement by the U.S. Supreme Court that it would review last year's decision by the Iowa Supreme Court to declare the state's racetrack casino tax unconstitutional, Rants was ecstatic. The move was unexpected. A shot in the dark, really, by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller to have the court consider the case regarding $112 million in tax refunds and interest that state officials have been ordered to pay to tracks in Altoona, Council Bluffs and Dubuque, plus $35 million annually in future state taxes. Iowa, flat broke, had lost millions on the state's original edict. This was a...