Rebuilding vital industries?

The folks over at the American Family Association are up in arms over what they report is an effort by the Bush Administration to offer $500,000,000 -- yeah, that's a half billion big ones -- in tax credits to Gulf Coast casinos.

In the past, government has avoided including the gambling industry in government aid programs. But the President now proposes, in his Gulf Opportunity Zone (GO Zone) package, to take that half-billion from tax payers and give it to the gambling industry.

Here is the kicker: The casinos didn't even ask for the tax credits!

Gee, did God tell Dubya to be nice to the gambling industry? That's a lot of tax free income that can be protected, even at the rate of $5 million a day (what they say the gambling industry was making on the Gulf before Katrina and Rita) that's 500 days worth of tax protection.

Seems a little bit on the pricey side.

In the interest of being totally unreasonable, we'd like to suggest that the Bush Administration back the hell away from any casino support whatsoever. Every ownership group, every investor, knew before they built that the Gulf Coast is prone to hurricanes, tornados and flooding. It was considered an acceptable risk of doing business, a business that involves stripping the desperately poor and the stupid wealthy of their assets.

Does anyone in their right mind suggest, for a moment, that the casinos were not going to rebuild? Perhaps a little farther from the shoreline, maybe, but if the Bush Administration follows through with this plan there is no incentive to build smarter.

Let the gambling industry take care of its own. There is no need to throw honest taxpayer bucks -- money involuntarily contributed by us regular folks -- at the sharks who live on land.