Poll says people prefer slots to taxes

I don’t think that’s a great revelation – I’d think many people would claim to prefer a bout of the flu to having their taxes raised – but for obvious reasons, this is a noteworthy finding.

A new poll conducted for horse track owners indicates that Texans would rather legalize slot machines at race tracks than pay higher taxes to offset a projected $18 billion revenue shortfall in the next state budget. The poll of 801 registered voters in Texas, conducted by Austin-based Perception Insight, showed the preference for slot machines across the political spectrum – Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Results of the poll mirrored earlier surveys that found Texans generally would rather see new revenue raised in ways other than through increasing taxes. The new poll, conducted from June 8-13, was paid for by Texans for Economic Development, which represents horse and dog track owners in the state. Efforts to expand gambling in Texas have picked up steam as projections for the state’s revenue shortfall next year have continued to grow.

According to the poll, 57 percent of voters favor slot machines over higher taxes when given a choice, while 22 percent would rather raise taxes.

You can see the poll memo here. There’s a lot of context missing – these were a couple of questions from a larger poll, about which we have not been told anything, and there’s no crosstab data – so don’t read too much into it. In particular, I think any time you ask the question “Would you prefer for the state to raise taxes or do X”, I think “do X” is going to win handily most of the time. Not to put too fine a point on it, but even the most optimistic estimate of potential gambling revenue for the state is far short of the structural deficit caused by the ginormous unaffordable property tax cut of 2006, let alone the actual shortfall for this biennium. In other words, this isn’t an either-or choice, even if we assumed there were no other possible options. I understand there’s only so much you can do in a poll, but that means there’s only so much you can take from it, too.

To me, the more interesting finding is that there is no apparent downside for a politician who supports expanded gambling. That’s not going to stop hardliners like Empower Texans, who have been peddling the misleading claim that gambling expansion is a Democratic issue – someone should tell that to Rep. Ed Kuempel, as he was the lead author of the joint resolution and its enabling legislation to expand gambling last session – from trying to scare Republicans about it. It wouldn’t be any fun if it weren’t for stuff like that. Whether this changes anyone’s position or not, I couldn’t say, but it’s not likely to make anyone shy away from supporting more gambling.

Finally, note that the questions only asked about slots at horse racing tracks, not about casinos. As we know, those two interests are competitive and not cooperative, so there’s no guarantee that even if we do see some kind of gambling expansion move forward that it will take this specific form. Maybe casinos would be less popular than slots, I don’t know. Just something to keep in mind.

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