KANSAN.COM THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MONDAY APRIL 26.2010 NEWS
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Two congressmen seek to allow Internet gambling
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
WASHINGTON — Americans looking to satisfy their gambling itch can do so now at the close to 1,700 casinos across the country. A bill in the House of Representatives could bring casino gambling to the approximately 86.8 million American homes with Internet access.
Reps Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Jim McDermott, D-Wash., are leading a group that proposes to repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which is set to go into effect June 1. Their plan would legalize and tax online gambling.
"We have an activity going on illegally in this country and we're pretending it doesn't exist." McDermott said. "People have said 'We want to be legal and we're certainly willing to pay taxes,' and we need the money. On every count, this is a net positive."
The bill calls for a six percent tax on all deposits to be paid to state and tribal governments made by residents of their jurisdiction. For
example, if someone living in Missouri puts $1,000 into an online gambling account anywhere in the country, $60 would go to Missouri's state government.
Additionally, two percent of all deposits would go to the federal
supporting new legislation.
government. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the bill would generate $30 billion for state and tribal governments and $42 billion for the federal government over the next 10 years.
"American adults want to be able to do what they want with their own money without the government interfering." Frank said.
"This is a huge
This is a huge boon to the state governments," McDermott said. "Ifyou look across the country you're seeing programs cut. In Arizona, they just cut out a program for children's health for 40,000 kids. Here's a source of money" to keep that going.
Opponents of Internet gambling aren't standing by idly, and are lim-
"People have said 'We want to be legal and we're certainly willing to pay taxes'and we need the money."
Along with much needed funds,
Frank made a libertarian argument
JIM MCDERMOTT
US Rep. (D-Washington).
ing up to oppose Frank and McDermott in the House.
Professional sports leagues are against the bill because they think it will expand wagers placed on their games.
Other influential groups, such as the nonprofit conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family, are firmly against any extension of legal gambling.
Chad Hills, policy and research analyst for Focus on the Family, said addictive gambling is already a problem in America and passage of this legislation would only exacerbate that problem.
"This basically creates a national casino and there's no time they won't be operating." Hills said. "We already have between 15 and 20 million people in the U.S. with a pathological gambling problem."
The bill was set to be considered earlier this month by the House Financial Services Committee, but the hearing was canceled due to a scheduling overload. Frank, the panel's chairman, plans to get a vote this spring, and is confident the House will pass the bill.
There is no companion bill in the Senate, but Sen. Robert Menendez, D.N.J., introduced a bill last August seeking to legalize and tax poker and games of chance on the Internet.
The casino industry always kept an eye on Internet gaming as a potential business opportunity in case its legal status ever changed.
Casino operators often think of the online gamer as a completely different beast from the gambler who will spend a night or a weekend at the tables. That means an untapped source of revenue is out there, and the industry may be positioned
better than anyone to get in right away.
ogy existed to protect consumers. In December 2008, the American Gaming Association set out to determine whether the appropriate technology could be implemented, a test that gambling websites passed unanimously, according to Frank
"This basically creates a national casino and there's no time they won't be operating."
CHAD HILLS Policy and research analyst Focus on the Family
The land-based casino industry and the American Gaming Association were initially opposed to Internet gambling because they didn't think the proper technol-
said Michael Waxman, executive director of the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, an advocacy group that lobbies on behalf of the Internet gaming industry.
Fahrenkopf, president and CEO of the AGA.
With that concern out of the way, most casinos see Internet gambling as another source of revenue rather than a competitor.
how hard it tries, will never be able to substitute that personal interaction that guests desire and our team members provide," said Troy Stremming, the senior vice president of government relations and public affairs for Ameristar Casinos Inc.
"The Internet,
no matter
INTERNATIONAL
Higher learning institutions in Haiti struggle after quake
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — On a recent weekday afternoon at the University of Haiti, students budded under a large tree while a professor lectured over a megaphone; his voice booming over the rumble of generators and squeals of homeless children at play.
"There is no hope for this year, so our only hope is that our government will find a plan for next year," said Jeff Lefevre, a communications student.
None of the students will get credit for attending this outdoor religion lesson, as the vast majority of Haiti's 25,000 university students have been shut out of class since the Jan. 12 earthquake toppled about 90 percent of the school buildings.
"We hear a lot of speeches about tents and food, but not about higher education. It's not what anybody is thinking about."
It has been more than three months since the 7.0-magnitude earthquake destroyed nine of the state university's 13 campuses, and the country's largest institution of higher learning is still looking for tents and space to offer classes outdoors.
Some universities have reached out to schools in the United States, such as Florida International University, to form partnerships and seek help. FIU has worked for months with the
resources in a nation wracked with problems, higher learning is low on the list of priorities.
The quake served to unmask an already crippled education system where even university presidents lack doctorate degrees and students
complained they had to offer their professors sex to graduate. So as educators scramble to count the losses, some experts say that the devastation will serve as the opportunity
"Higher education in Haiti was a mess prior to the earthquake."
University of Haiti to assess its needs.
LOUIS HERNS MARCELIN
Chancellor, InteruniversityInstitute
for Research and Development
to create a higher education system from scratch, or risk forever becoming a leaderless nation dependent on foreign aid.
"There is no hope for this year, so our only hope is that our government will find a plan for next year."
JEFF LEFEVRE Haitian communications student
surveyed, 28 were destroyed.
"Higher education in Haiti was a mess prior to the earthquake," said Louis Herms Marcelin, a University of Miami anthropologist who is the chancellor of Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development (INURED),aresearch and higher education organization in Port-au-Prince. "Over the years
Marcelin said the state university needs $2.5 million immediately just to get temporary structures up, but the issue is not on the gov-
Still, officials at both public and private universities in Haiti say that with food and shelter straining
Anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 students died.
of institutional degradation,
no regulation,
no standards,
it became 'whatever.'
Whatever happens. The earthquake unveiled a disaster that was already
happening," he said.
AN INURED study showed 80 percent of Haiti's 159 universities were in the quake-ravaged capital of Port-au-Prince. Of the 32 they
ernment — the U.S. or Haiti's agenda.
"There has been no concrete message telling us what they are going to do," said Gorchemy Jean Baptiste, 25, a pharmacy major at the topped medical school. "We are ready to
Opening schools and institutions of higher education in preparation for the new school year is among Haiti's priorities, the government said in a needs assessment report presented to the March 31 international donors conference at the United Nations.
go anywhere to study and come back and help our country. Right now we are not in class and instead sleeping under sheets under plain view"
Although it did not distinguish between lower and higher education, the report says more than 1,300 education institutions collapsed as a result of the quake.
The government estimates that it will cost $915 million to relaunch Haiti's education system over the next 12 months, and $3.5 billion to build an education system over the next decade.
A Ministry of Education official acknowledged that the emphasis has been on lower education, because of an urgent quest to get children off the street.
ENVIRONMENT
Golden State conservationists frustrated by fish freeway plans
The project is the latest, yet far from the most unusual, steelhead recovery attempt by government agencies that have spent millions
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The problem, even some conservationists say, is that there is little evidence construction efforts since the 1980s have done anything except absorb taxpayer dollars. The work to save the species has led to about a dozen concrete fishways at a cost of more than $16.7 million.
A $1 million fish ladder — a structure designed to allow fish to
MALIBU, Calif. — In hopes of luring the endangered steelhead trout into the Santa Monica Mountains, California's transportation agency is planning to spend $935,000 to pave over part of a popular beach with cement and boulders to build a freeway of sorts for fish.
of dollars on concrete fish ladders, cameras, fishways and other contraptions to allow seagoing trout to spawn in California streams.
"If we do a series of crappy projects like fish ladders to nowhere... then the public trust for giving money for these types of projects is going to go away," said conservationist Mark Abramson of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation.
migrate upward over a barrier — may cost $7.5 million in stimulus funds to rebuild. Another fish ladder would require fish to leap 8 feet to reach it. Studies alone for replacing a third ladder have cost an estimated $3 million.
migrate upstream over a barrier