01:00 AM EST on Friday, January 20, 2006

ROCKFORD, Ill.

IT DOESN'T TAKE an Einstein to construct an equation to see that the fusion of gambling and politics is generating massive government corruption. What local and state governments have experienced is now engulfing Washington, D.C. Gambling promoters and their hired lobbyists are now joined at the hip with our elected officials to promote an extensive gambling culture in America.

This is not the mere suspicion of an anti-gambling reformer, but now the focus of investigated teams from the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Illegal gambling, once the honey pot of organized crime, has now become a cesspool of government corruption.

When I read of the millions of dollars that flow from gambling predators to elected officials for special-interest legislation, I shudder at what corruption is doing to the democratic foundations of our land. For example, how could Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition and now running for high office in Georgia, receive more than a million dollars from a Mississippi Indian casino laundered through an intermediary tax-exempt group, all orchestrated by super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to torpedo a proposed Indian casino in Alabama?

Both political parties have been equal-opportunity pigs at the feeding trough of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Behind the recent confessions of mail fraud, tax evasion, and influence peddling is the enormous impact of gambling dollars on politics. Gambling lobbyists are involved in misused charities, campaign contributions, overseas golfing excursions, and stipends to the wives of lawmakers. Trace the money to its source and you find enormous gambling profits.

The majority of senators are returning tainted gambling contributions, including Conrad Burns (R.-Mont.), Byron Dorgan (D.-N.D.), Mitch McConnell (R.-Kty.), Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D.-N.Y.), Sam Brownback (R.-Kans.), and Max Baucus, (D.-Mont.) Prominent House members on the list of recipients include former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R.-Texas), Nita Lowey (D.-N.Y.), House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.), Earl Pomeroy (D.-N.D.), Bob Ney (R.-Ohio), and Patrick Kennedy (D.-R.I.).

Elected officials of both parties are now giving back millions of gambling dollars with the same ease with which they accepted them.

Current headlines eclipse the savings-and-loan scandals of a generation ago. Congress tried to bail out the financial losses of savings-and-loan associations, but who pays for the victims of our national gambling binge, the losses resulting from increased addictions, bankruptcies, theft, embezzlements, suicides, marital problems, and broken homes?

Certainly not the gambling promoters and their hirelings.

The National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion has been successful in defeating most gambling proposals at the state level. For example, California voters realized what gambling was doing to their state in 2004. The racing industry sponsored an initiative to legalize slots at racetracks, and the tribes obtained enough signatures to extend their 20-year compacts to 99 years. Voters saw that more gambling meant more profits, and more profits meant more corruption. Gambling promoters spent nearly $60 million trying to expand their clutches on the Golden State. The press foresaw the dangers ahead, and many public-interest groups realized the dangers of more gambling corruption. The vote against the tracks was 84 percent and against the Indian casinos, 76 percent. It is amazing how intelligent average voters can be when facts are known.

In the midst of this corruption in Congress, we have appreciated the leadership of Rep. Frank Wolf (R.-Va.). He persuaded the U.S. House to exclude casinos, bars, liquor stores, and massage parlors from the tax benefits of proposed legislation to assist Gulf Coast businesses. Fortunately, the Senate accepted this restriction, and H.R. 4440 became law. The hurrricane-damaged areas need solid businesses that produce goods and services, not rebuilt casinos, which siphon money from their communities.

The tragedy of gambling is the lure of great wealth, painlessly acquired through luck. When individuals become addicted to this dream of easy money, their greed often leads to fraud, bankruptcy, and personal tragedy.

This same pattern is emerging in modern government. Here, too, gamblers offer easy wealth: a painless revenue stream to cover government deficits. With the lubrication of political contributions, lawmakers view gambling as the solution to financing government obligations. Thus, Government slowly becomes addicted to more and more gambling schemes.

The results are tragically predictable: financial shortfalls, personal tragedies, and the political corruption that we are now experiencing. No state can gamble itself rich.

Last year, Nevada passed the largest tax increase in its history. Like other gambling-addicted states, Nevada had to get out of the hole that gambling had dug for it. The time has come for politicians to sever their ties with gambling predators.

America needs a new Declaration of Independence. When the children of Israel longed to return to the "fleshpots of Egypt," Moses challenged them to immediately break their ties with Pharaoh: to say no to his tricks and trinkets, and to march on to the Promised Land. As citizens, we need to shed the bondage of increased gambling that is corrupting our government. We need clear-cut leadership that will reject political contributions and build our society on the foundations of honest effort and hard work. We are a prosperous nation that can afford the needed services of a well-ordered society.

The ballot box is where this new Declaration of Independence will be made. Let the election cycle begin. America must become free again.

Thomas Grey, of Rockford, Ill., is national field director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling.