State Senate Paying for Propaganda

From the SHNS:

ANTI-GAMBLING GROUP DRILLS ROSENBERG OVER STUDY: One of the loudest critics of the push for expanded gambling slammed Senate President Pro Tempore Stanley Rosenberg for sitting on what the group called “the one-sided, apparently taxpayer-funded benefits only study they have reportedly undertaken to prop up their gambling industry bailout.” Rosenberg, point man on gambling policy for the Senate, commissioned an outside study of the market and economic benefits of the proposal. Kathleen Conley Norbut, president of United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts, ripped Senate leaders. “It looks like Senate leadership is using untold taxpayer dollars on a private firm to create more propaganda to justify a proposal which, even proponents admit, will lead to increased corruption and crime, harm to families and children, losses to small businesses and their employees and vast new taxpayer costs,” Norbut said in a statement.

So, let's get this straight: the Senate's paying for a study to see what the economic benefits would be? How about the costs? When are we going to get a study on the costs to cities and towns, businesses, the state lottery, law enforcement, transportation, infrastructure, and social nets? How much tax dollars the casinos would peel away from lost business at local businesses, their cut staff and the lottery? Seriously, that stuff is by far the most relevant -- the industry and politicians have paid for dozens of propaganda reports before. Right now we need some facts, not more meaningless numbers. Without the costs, that's all these propaganda reports can be -- utterly meaningless.