Feb. 18, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
EDITORIAL: Internet gambling
Congress should reject expansion of the regulatory state
If House Republicans were serious about denouncing the influence of lobbyists and the "everything for sale" approach to legislation enforced by former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, they would embrace the concept of limited government.
Instead, they appear ready to expand the regulatory powers of the federal government and criminalize more victimless behavior.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and 112 co-sponsors on Thursday reintroduced a bill that would outlaw Internet gambling. The legislation would update the U.S. Wire Act of 1961, which forbids the use of telephone lines to place interstate bets, to include Internet technology. A similar bill introduced by Rep. James Leach, R-Iowa, would ban the use of credit cards and electronic fund transfers to pay for Internet wagering and require federal policing of billions of financial transactions every year.
Whatever incarnation of this effort emerges will have majority support in the House. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., believes Rep. Goodlatte's bill will become law before year's end.
Internet gambling, which allows Web users to play virtually every casino game imaginable as well as wager on sporting events, has grown into a $12 billion a year industry. It tears at most members of Congress that they can't get their hands around this revenue and take a share to fund their own outrageous spending habits. Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, is preparing a report on the feasibility of legalized (and, by association, taxed) Internet wagering.
But the conservative patrons of many lawmakers (and some members of the gaming industry) frown upon the further spread of legalized wagering, so their inclination is to ban it altogether, regardless of how many government agents would be needed to uphold such a law. And more regulation inevitably leads to more lobbying.
The last thing Americans need today is a regulatory presence on the Internet or federal snooping on individual financial transactions. Any ban in Internet gambling has misguided intentions and even worse consequences.
Find this article at: http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_ho...s/5950681.html
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
EDITORIAL: Internet gambling
Congress should reject expansion of the regulatory state
If House Republicans were serious about denouncing the influence of lobbyists and the "everything for sale" approach to legislation enforced by former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, they would embrace the concept of limited government.
Instead, they appear ready to expand the regulatory powers of the federal government and criminalize more victimless behavior.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and 112 co-sponsors on Thursday reintroduced a bill that would outlaw Internet gambling. The legislation would update the U.S. Wire Act of 1961, which forbids the use of telephone lines to place interstate bets, to include Internet technology. A similar bill introduced by Rep. James Leach, R-Iowa, would ban the use of credit cards and electronic fund transfers to pay for Internet wagering and require federal policing of billions of financial transactions every year.
Whatever incarnation of this effort emerges will have majority support in the House. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., believes Rep. Goodlatte's bill will become law before year's end.
Internet gambling, which allows Web users to play virtually every casino game imaginable as well as wager on sporting events, has grown into a $12 billion a year industry. It tears at most members of Congress that they can't get their hands around this revenue and take a share to fund their own outrageous spending habits. Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, is preparing a report on the feasibility of legalized (and, by association, taxed) Internet wagering.
But the conservative patrons of many lawmakers (and some members of the gaming industry) frown upon the further spread of legalized wagering, so their inclination is to ban it altogether, regardless of how many government agents would be needed to uphold such a law. And more regulation inevitably leads to more lobbying.
The last thing Americans need today is a regulatory presence on the Internet or federal snooping on individual financial transactions. Any ban in Internet gambling has misguided intentions and even worse consequences.
Find this article at: http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_ho...s/5950681.html
