Gambling With Transportation

Taxes, not electronic gimmickry, will solve Virginia's roads mess.

IN THEIR desperation to tap fresh sources of transportation funding that cannot be labeled as new taxes, Virginia lawmakers are warming to a notion many of them once abhorred: an enormous expansion of legal gambling. Legislation that would permit as many as 11,000 "instant racing" video machines at a racetrack near Richmond and 10 off-track parlors around the state is advancing through the General Assembly on the strength of seat-of-the-pants estimates that it might produce $350 million in annual revenue, most of which would be devoted to roads maintenance.

Never mind that the machines in question are in use in only one state, Arkansas; or that a mere 350 of them are in place at a single track there; or that it verges on the foolhardy to hitch the state's vital ongoing transportation needs to a relatively untested funding mechanism. No matter. Suddenly, the panacea of gambling is taken as an article of faith in Richmond, where the legislation has cleared the Senate and is now before the House of Delegates.

It's true that the form of gambling in question differs somewhat from video slot machines, which we have opposed in Maryland. The machines under consideration in Virginia would allow betting on thousands of "historical" horse races -- ones that have already taken place at tracks around the country but with the dates, venues and identities of the horses veiled until after a player has placed his or her bet. But the look and feel of the terminals is similar to slots, and the drawbacks are the same -- they tempt addicts to indulge their addiction, inviting social problems in the bargain. In the end, it is irresponsible to link the state's transportation needs to what is essentially a form of electronic gimmickry.

It took the Republican leaders months to come around to the obvious conclusion that new funding is desperately needed for transportation. But the plan they finally proposed was deficient in several respects, not least because it raids too much money from other spending priorities, such as education, health and public safety, and yields too little for better roads and rails. The GOP measure would allow the state's most jampacked regions, Northern Virginia and Tidewater, to tax themselves, which makes sense. But it is a pipedream to think that Virginia can reliably and fully address its most urgent problem without significant new revenue. New statewide taxes will not be the whole answer to Virginia's dilemma, but they must be part of it.