State Senate to take up casinos in June

Senator Murray says the State Senate will take up slots in June, also saying she's only in favor of resort casinos.

I ask readers to remind her -- and their own state legislators -- that we just grew over 19,000 jobs last month and not a single one of them came from a slot machine. We don't need casinos in this state to grow jobs; they're a gimmick that sucks money right out of the local economy, depositing it to the executives and shareholders of massive casino corporations the world over, never to be seen in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts again. Instead of creating permanent jobs, they swap the local, home-grown jobs for the Big Box jobs, and there's usually less of them. Everything from local theaters to restaurants, bars and clubs get smashed by the casinos, while the local businesses that did business with and provided services for those companies get hurt, too.

This is not a jobs grower for Massachusetts. It's just politicians looking for headlines, glitz and the big bucks of slot-machine political donations.