Armey opposed to fed gaming tax proposal

Wednesday, June 16, 1999 | 11:25 a.m.

A casino industry critic's proposal for a 1 percent federal tax on gambling revenues drew swift opposition from House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, on Tuesday.

A spokesman for Armey said he "opposes any new tax on the industry."

And Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., issued a statement Tuesday indicating he had received similar assurances from Armey within hours after Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., proposed the tax at a Capitol Hill news conference.

"The majority leader has given me his commitment to oppose this ill-conceived plan that would tax the gaming industry at the federal level," Gibbons said. "Majority Leader Armey feels the same way I do, and he knows this plan to impose federal taxes on the gaming industry must be stopped in its tracks."

Wolf, the casino industry's most vocal adversary in Congress, proposed the tax to help fund gambling addiction treatment. He said the measure was one of several legislative packages he was considering in the aftermath of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission's report, which will be made public Friday.

Wolf, who authored legislation creating the two-year federal gambling study, said he also was looking to introduce other bills to ban amateur and college sports betting, require warning labels about addiction on all gambling products and restrict ATM access in casinos.

His proposals were condemned by industry lobbyists and other members of Nevada's congressional delegation.

"Frank Wolf has demonstrated again his complete disregard and contempt for Nevada's major industry," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. said. "He will stop at nothing to attempt to destroy what is a legitimate business in the state of Nevada and throughout the United States. This sham of a national gambling commission was merely a rouse to give him cover to continue his crusade against the gaming industry.

Berkley called Wolf's tax proposal "as absurd as his obsessive compulsion to destroy the gaming industry."

Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, issued a three-page statement late Tuesday blasting Wolf as an anti-gambling zealot.

"Congressman Wolf's latest hysterical diatribe against the legalized gaming industry is a transparent attempt to skew the media coverage and therefore the public's view of the Gambling Impact Study Commission's final report three days prior to its official release," Fahrenkopf said.

"Not having the facts on his side, Congressman Wolf has turned to distortion, factual error and rhetorical excess to make his case. Using the tried and true public relations technique of a pre-emptive strike, he hopes to upstage the commission's findings."

Fahrenkopf called Wolf's reaction to the commission's findings as "understandable as it is predictable.

"It also is sad," Fahrenkopf added. "Congressman Wolf's blind anti-gaming rhetoric runs completely contrary to the Herculean effort made by the members of the commission to be fair and balanced in (their) final report."

Sen. Richard Bryan, however, said he was concerned that the nine-member panel's report will provide "the Frank Wolfs of the world with fodder to launch these attacks on the industry.

"Rather than spend our time on constructive things, this is going to require energy and time on our part to see that these proposals don't gain any traction," Bryan said. "You have something like this ricocheting around congressional corners and you never can breathe easy until the gavel is finally sounded and the session is over."

Fahrenkopf said the gambling commission's report does not find "an evil industry without any good qualities," as Wolf alleges, but rather an industry that has emerged as an "economic mainstay" in many communities.

"The report contains much we in the commercial casino industry agree with, and there are some recommendations and findings we cannot support," Fahrenkopf said. "But in fairness, we recognize it as a good faith effort. Such fairness is obviously too much to ask of zealots such as Congressman Wolf."