Gambling, taxes and voting rights also are news – Southgate News Herald

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

Ambrose Bierce, American writer

Hello Downriver,

With the pandemic dominating the news and our lives, we run the risk of other things slipping through the cracks.

Such as

Are you at all disturbed by the almost overnight splash of online gambling?

Not just in our state, but across the country and more specifically, in our sports?

Im not anti-gambling; like anything else, taken in moderation, it can be a fun form of entertainment.

But my concern is about its complete absorption into the sports scene particularly in professional sports, which is now not only being sponsored by gambling companies, but the leagues have been selling data to those companies.

According to published reports, DraftKings, FanDuel, William Hill, MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Betstars are among gambling companies that have reached individual deals with leagues to buy their official data.

An interesting arrangement, given that these leagues have historically punished their players for being involved with gambling, but now see no problem being in bed with gambling whether it be the spate of online books or simply collaborating with and promoting fantasy leagues in which money is at play.

But since this horse has long left the barn, run down the hill and galloped into the next county, I have a different take: Forget the gambling (its here to stay), and reinstate those players who were punished down through the years for being in cahoots with the same entities that the leagues are in cahoots with today.

To use the vernacular of todays social scene, I suppose this would be a cancel culture moment, but I really dont care.

Its still hard to imagine Pete Rose not being in the baseball Hall of Fame for betting, when the league in which he played is now knee-deep in collaborating with betting houses.

But dont take it from me: This is what Kenny Gersh, vice president of gaming and new business ventures for Major League Baseball (like that title?), had to say a year ago!

Baseball has always been a statistics-driven sport: Are the pitches breaking as much in the third inning as they were in the first inning? Whats the spin rate?

We spent all this time and money to develop and implement this.

Now, we can market betting products off of that data, he said. My hope for baseball is that betting evolves, that you can make micro-bets: Is Aaron Judge going to hit a home run off Chris Sale in the seventh inning? What are the odds of that happening? We can market those tools so that sports books can offer a better product.

Yet Pete Rose is on the outside looking in?

Which makes this quote all the more hypocritical: There are four key objectives for the NFL when it comes to legal sports betting: integrity, brand, fan engagement, and commercial opportunity.

That quote was from Chris Halpin, the NFLs executive vice president and chief strategy and growth officer.

But how in the world can you ensure integrity when your goal is commercial opportunity?

In short, you cant: when money starts talking, any other conversation is muted.

Which is why MLB came down hard on Rose, but has no problem chasing bucks with those same gambling interests: Integrity was applied to Rose, but commercial opportunity is being applied to the league.

So, as long as the league profits, its all good.

And therein lies the core argument for the various sports leagues from the big four (baseball, football, basketball and hockey) to NASCAR and the PGA: If you cant beat em, join em.

Besides, what better way to continue to make sports interesting than to allow people to bet on whether the next pitch is a fastball, the next play is a pass, the next shot is a 3-pointer or the next power play will go to the home team?

Because clearly, professional sports core worry the one that keeps them awake at night is that theyre losing fans in droves.

So theyre willing to do anything including sleeping with the devil to continue to generate interest.

Which, in the end, brings me to this: Lift the lifetime ban on Pete Rose, and scrub the records of Alex Karras, Paul Hornung and Art Schlichter none of whom were ever accused of betting on (or at least against) their own teams.

But leave intact the lifelong ban on the Chicago Black Sox.

I mean, professional sports has to have some kind of integrity, right?

Shifting gears

For those who have followed my columns, you know Ive consistently been opposed to the Trump-era tax cuts for the rich and powerful.

Yes, yes, critics have reminded me that the $1.9 trillion tax cut plan also included cuts for the rest of us but those expire in three years, whereas the other cuts live on forever.

Or until President Biden can reverse part of them in his new $2.2 trillion infrastructure plan.

Until and unless that happens, though, were stuck with this kind of headline: These 55 Huge American Companies Paid Zero Federal Taxes.

Yep, you read that right, the online business publication, 24/7 Wall Street, published the list of those companies in that story.

And its quite a list, dominated by tech, financial services, and utilities, the article says.

I wont bother listing the names here (you can look it up), but the very fact such a list exists supports my core argument against the Trump tax cuts: It didnt do anything to spur growth, it merely grew corporate profits by them paying less taxes or none at all.

This isnt a liberal view, either: A true conservative would have a real problem with this kind of math.

But todays Republican Party (which is no longer a bastion of true conservatism) doesnt have a problem with it at all.

In fact, whereas the party is crying crocodile tears over the recent $1.9 trillion Biden rescue plan because of its impact on the deficit and debt, it didnt feel the same way about the $1.9 trillion tax cut.

Oh, and while not a single GOP apparatchik voted for the rescue plan, all of them are taking a victory lap in their hometowns.

Why?

Because while they hated it, their voting public loved it.

But I digress: increasing the cost of Bidens new infrastructure plan would be offset in part by clawing back a bit of the corporate largesse from the Trump administration: increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% from its current 21%.

Keep in mind, though, that this is still a tax cut for corporations: Prior to the Trump cut, the corporate rate was 35%, so Biden would essentially cut the rate by 7 percentage points.

(So dont be misled by those who argue this is an effective tax increase; its not.)

And, speaking of the GOP

As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, 361 bills had been introduced in 47 states including Michigan to make it harder for Americans (read: minorities) to vote.

And each of these bills was introduced by Republican-led legislatures.

Why?

Because they still believe in (or at least pay lip service to) the big lie perpetrated by the former huckster-in-chief; that there was rampant fraud in the 2020 election.

There wasnt.

But the big lie gives them cover to deal with their real fear: If voting access was made easier cross the country, Republicans would be losing elections in droves.

But dont take my word for it:

Trump once said that if the United States switched to all-mail voting, youd never have a Republican elected in this country again.

The GOP speaker of the House in Georgia once said an all-mail election would be extremely devastating to Republicans.

And South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham famously said: If we dont do something about voting by mail, we are going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country.

Of course, what Graham and the rest of the GOP want to do in response to that fear is restrict voting rights of those who might vote the other way.

Which is why several bills in Congress right now are so important: They would extend and confirm the voting rights of us all.

So my message to Republicans is this: Youd better start working on your policies and messaging, because your transparent attempts to restrict voting rights is downright un-American.

And a losing strategy.

(One last thing a question: Why is the GOP in favor of stronger identification laws for voting, but no such requirements for buying a gun? Just asking.)

Craig Farrand is a former managing editor of The News-Herald Newspapers. He can be reached at cfarrandudm@yahoo.com.

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Gambling, taxes and voting rights also are news - Southgate News Herald