Nevada Rep: Clinton backs away from casinos checks for deadbeat parents

Thursday, March 30, 2000 | 9:05 a.m.

The White House decision to pull the plan from Clinton's budget for fiscal 2001 was made just before his scheduled fund-raising trip to Las Vegas on Sunday - a visit expected to raise some $400,000 for the Democratic Party.

Richard Urey, spokesman for Berkley, D-Nev., said Nevada's congressional delegation had joined with the casino industry in lobbying against the idea.

"We spent a lot of time explaining that it would be onerous and ineffectual," said Urey. "We were very pleased to hear from the White House that it has been removed, this bureaucratic brainstorm has been dropped."

Under the proposal, a casino could have seized the winnings of patrons who owe child support. The provision was one of several in Clinton's budget seeking to collect $2 billion in back child support in the next five years.

Casinos would have been responsible for checking to see whether their big winners owed child support as they went through procedures for withholding federal income taxes - and then seizing the winnings of the "deadbeats."

It would have applied to winnings through casinos, dog racing, jai alai or keno, but not to winnings from lotteries.

Critics argued that the proposal raised serious due process and privacy issues, and regulating gamblers who owe child support would be too difficult.

Bill Thompson, a UNLV professor of public administration and gambling expert, termed the proposal absurd and said it amounted to a government bid to dump deadbeat parents on private businesses.