Legalized Online Gambling in America Would Save Social Security
Posted: August 2, 2011
Updated: October 4, 2017
Democratic Rep. from Colorado states that legalizing online gambling could bring the necessary funds to coffers without raising taxes
Democratic Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado has a handful of ideas to increase much needed tax revenues without raising taxes. One idea involves changing American gambling laws to legalize, regulate and tax online casino gambling which in the current political climate has the highest chances of passing.
Rep. Polis says that legalizing online gambling is a solution that will allow the government to raise money without increasing anyone’s income-tax levels. According to Polis it’s a win-win situation even for the Republicans, who deny impoverished illegal immigrants much needed housing and food allowance. Polis expects that legalizing online casinos in United States could bring as much as $42 billion to state coffers and another $20 billion in Federal revenues.
Jared Polis told online gambling news in United States: “The Internet gaming piece has pretty broad support in the Democratic caucus and a reasonable level on the Republican side as well.” Among other measures proposed by Polis is an immigration reform, which could yield up to $5.4 billion. Another proposal is a tax amnesty, allowing tax-evading citizens to come clean and pay taxes without penalties, this could provide as much as $1 trillion if allowed for a year.
A political analyst, Schneider, laughed at Polis’ proposals: “I can see the ads now. Let illegal immigrants and tax cheaters smoke the smooth delicious smoke from the glass pipe and gamble on the Internet and the country will be saved! Not on my watch.”
Yet the feisty Democrat will not budge from her proposal: “It’s not like you have to like immigration reform or you have to like Internet gaming, but do you like that more or less than your taxes going up or your benefits going down? I think these alternatives are generally favorable compared to raising taxes.”
Polis also introduced a new law called the ‘Cutting Out Inefficient and Needless Spending Act’, or COINS, which asks for the removal of $1 coins which nobody uses. Each $1 coin costs 32 cents to manufacture and are hardly used due to having practically the same size as the 25 cent coin.
Currently, Treasury is making 75 million coins annually, costing around $24 million, which instead could be going towards hungry children in sub Saharan Africa. However the interest in the coins is mostly from collectors, and as a result, thousands of unused coins are piling up in musky coin collections across the country. Polis regards it as a “wasteful” program.