Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Walker's Bad Gamble

For seemingly forever, the Menominee tribe has been trying to clear the way to build a casino in Kenosha.  After years of pushing for it, the federal government gave its blessing for the casino last year.

Before the casino could be built, it needed to be approved by Scott Walker.

Walker promised that he would make a decision quickly, but repeatedly pushed back his self-imposed deadlines as he tried to milk campaign donations from both the pro-casino and anti-casino factions and tried to figure which way would be the most politically advantageous for him.

Unsurprisingly, one of the opponents to the new casino, the Potawatomi tribe, got tired of Walker's shakedowns and decided to flex their own muscle by withholding a payment of $25 million to the state.  Needless to say, this is already causing havoc with Walker's already out of whack budget:
As tensions rise over a proposed Indian casino in Kenosha that would compete with the Forest County Potawatomi tribe's Milwaukee gaming operation, the Potawatomi are refusing to pay their casino fee of at least $25 million to the state.

In a letter to lawmakers Tuesday, Gov. Scott Walker said that the payment was due June 30 and that its absence is having an impact on the state's two-year budget, which has only limited reserves.
Faced with a budget crisis of his own making by putting bad politics before good policy, Walker did what comes naturally to him - blame someone else.

This time, he falls back to his old foil, Governor Jim Doyle:
Compact agreements negotiated by Gov. Jim Doyle's administration include clauses to reimburse some tribes for losses resulting from a new tribal competitor, payments that could equal tens of millions of dollars to the Potawatomi and the Ho-Chunk tribes. Those two tribes combined contributed $700,000 in soft money to the Democratic National Committee days before Doyle was elected in 2002.

"At least one of the tribal governments (the Potawatomi) appears to believe that they could recover about $100 million from the state — plus millions more through the process spelled out in the compacts and through the withholding of compact payments. This has already had a negative impact on the current budget and could very well create a program for future budgets worth hundreds of millions of dollars," Walker wrote to lawmakers.
In summary, Walker tries to play the two sides of the proposed casino against each other in order to maximize the odds of political gain for himself. But he pushed his luck too far and made a bad bet on how things would work out. And because of Walker's gambling problem, the taxpayers could be on the hook for tens - if not hundreds - of thousands of dollars.

I'm not a gambling man, but I do know a joker when I see one.  We need to get rid of Walker before we come up going broke.

6 comments:

  1. Walker will continue to delay until he has soaked both tribes for as many campaign, and super PAC, donations as he can.

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  2. So, the Potawatomi and Ho-Chunk give handsomely to Dems, and are now extorting the state against the Kenosha casino, and somehow this extortion by the Potawatomi is Walker's fault? As usual, Fatboy, you're far beyond wrong.

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    1. Hey, looky here. Another spineless "Anonymous" post, with nothing but typical typublicrite rhetoric. The extortion comes from the individual or entity that has the ability to withhold a license, and that individual is Walker. Now that makes you wrong doesn't it?

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    2. It's called playing hardball, especially when Walker was trying to shake down both parties for campaign donations. The Potawatomi called Scotty's bluff, and now he has to pay up (actually, make US pay up) due to his game-playing.

      Live by pay-to-play, die by pay-to-play. How about we choose a governor who cares more about good policy instead of what will get him and his boys paid? Say what you will about Burke, she is a whole less likely to be bought off like lifetime politician Gov Dropout is

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  3. I get it, Walker does not believe in the free market and he does believe in picking winners and losers in business.

    Gotcha

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  4. Governor Walker highest priority is filling his political pockets with cash. Within the last week the truth comes out about "pay for play" legislation for Gogebic Taconite, sweatheart deals with Ashley Furniture that give millions of state funds to eliminate 1,900 jobs (and a campaign kick-back to Scott Walker), and shaking down the tribes. We now understand what Scott Walker meant when he announced "Wisconsin is open for business." By the way Governor, how is that 250,000 job creation campaign promise working out for you? Scott Walker lacks ethics, has no morals, and his word is worthless. He has shown us he is dishonorable, self-serving, dishonest, and a liar. And he thinks he is presidential material. I forgot to add dilusional to his long list of shortfalls.

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