State Rep. Don Pasley isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
In a Winchester Sun article, Pasley strays from the talking points that casino gambling -- his party's second best plan for economic expansion, the first is raising the minimum wage -- will cure all that ails Kentucky. Gambling promoters in the General Assembly are supposed to say that education and roads will benefit from casinos and that there will be little or no social costs.
Pasley has somewhat more modest plans for his casino cash, he wants it all to go to horse breeders:
If casino-style gambling is allowed, he explained, it should be connected to horse racing and the revenue should go to breeder incentive programs.
How many families, I wonder, does Pasley want to destroy in shiny casinos to prop up the moribund horse industry in Kentucky? That is somewhat better than the usual approach of promising casinos will fix all Kentucky's money problems, but that will be small comfort to the victims of this terrible idea.
By the way, with the super-sized social spending increases caused by casinos the victims will include everyone in the commonwealth. Taxes will have to go up. Just ask New Jersey.
