PETEY'S GAMBLING HABIT

Will Schwartz (Huffington Post)

Pernicious Pedro Espada, famed party betrayer and alleged embezzler, glibly politicized and distorted the fiscally progressive nature of the cuts with his political Eddie Haskel act: "We had to be responsible and deliberative with this DRP, making sure we didn't continue to burden people already hit the hardest by this economic recession -- the poor, the elderly, and working families. We were able to achieve that goal with minimal reductions in healthcare and completely averting mid-year cuts to school aid."

I have a hard time believing that Pedro Espada, who likely pockets state money headed for hospitals in the South Bronx, has a scrap of compassion lingering anywhere in his vicious little mind. What he's not saying is how pained those poor, elderly and working people will be when their social services are cut under unprecedented economic duress. What he's not saying, ultimately, is how the lobbies with the deepest pockets reaped the most benefit in the Senate's DRP.

Take the optimistically forecasted 200 million dollar revenue boost they listed from the "VLT Franchise Payment," a Senatorial nod to the gaming industry, which allows them to install and profit off of video gambling systems in the Aqueduct Race Track. The VLT program appears to be a pay-to-play, with the gaming industry donating over ten thousand dollars to Finance Chair Carl Kruger's war chest on its behalf. It doesn't seem like a viable revenue source while other gambling ventures in the state, like the OTB, have recently nosedived into bankruptcy.