Opinion> Debra Saunders> Gaming California

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Gaming California

"Protect hundreds of millions of dollars each year in our state budget by voting yes on Prop. 94, 95, 96 and 97," reads the ballot argument signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Basically, supporters are urging voters to approve Indian "gaming" compacts with four tribes because the new pacts, which would allow the big four tribal casinos to add a total of 17,000 slot machines, would put more money in state coffers. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, each measure is expected to increase state revenues annually "probably in the tens of millions of dollars, growing over time through 2030."

The whole exercise begs the question: If voters are supposed to approve more gambling to get more tax money, why not legalize gambling for everyone and really rake in the big bucks?

Why should four rich tribes enjoy a monopoly on new slots? If Californians want more gambling to provide easy money for a strapped state government, think of all the dough to be made by opening up gambling outside of tribal lands.

The projected $14 billion state budget shortfall will make the measures more attractive to voters. Tax increases or slots? Spending cuts or slots? For many voters, that's a no-brainer.

California is caught up in a cycle of expanding government. Voters have passed a spate of initiatives that mandate increased spending and how tax money should be spent. Sacramento knows that the public wants more services, but no one wants to pay for it.

So lawmakers rely on gimmicks. In 1984, voters approved the California Lottery — which promised that 34 percent of its revenue would go to public education. Voters wondered where the lottery money went — unaware that school spending increases outstripped the lottery revenue. Last year, the California Lottery distributed more than $1 billion to the education community — which is nice, but that amounts to between 1 and 2 percent of the state's public education budget. In 1988, voters passed Proposition 98, which guaranteed funding for public schools by codifying a formula that made state budgeting a nightmare when revenues shrank.

In 1998, Californians passed an Indian gaming initiative — largely because Golden Staters wanted to give tribes a means to pull themselves out of poverty.

A decade later, and after voters chose to further expand Indian slots, the big tribes have big casinos. Casino tribes, who pass on a small cut of their winnings to non-gaming tribes, generate more than $7 billion annually. The smaller tribes want more.

Is that good for California? Is this what voters wanted? If the Pechanga, Morongo, Sycuan and Agua Caliente tribes in Southern California expand their businesses, the Legislative Analyst wrote, "Californians would spend more of their income at tribal facilities" and less at "other businesses'' — read: restaurants, hotels, entertainment — "that are subject to state and local taxes."

It's a throw of the dice: The new slots could hurt businesses that contribute to the state's coffers. Worse, this new-money argument supports the illusion that state government can keep growing, yet taxpayers won't get pinched.

Before he was elected, Schwarzenegger argued that he would balance the budget by going after "waste, fraud and abuse." Last week, a much-changed governor told the Los Angeles Times editorial board, "If you look at the $14.5 billion we need, you don't even have to look there. You are not even going to find 1 percent there."

Maybe that's true, but the billions needed are not going to instantly materialize out of gamblers' painful losses, either.

Voters should beware when supporters change the vocabulary to win an election. Hence the dropped "B" that turns gambling into gaming — which sounds almost sporting, and does not connote the stacked-deck odds of a wagering establishment.

Most of all, voters need to wake up to the reality that there are no easy fixes. The next state budget is expected hit $141 billion. And when it comes time to fill the $14 billion gap between revenues and expenses, there will be no big jackpot.

E-mail Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com. To find out more about Debra J. Saunders, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.