This morning some members of the Texas political media are trotting out Texas Association of Businesses (TAB) support of gambling expansion as some kind of proof conservatives support this.
This is ridiculous on its face. TAB long ago fell out with fiscal conservatives. TAB belongs to the big-spending Austin establishment.
TAB collects members and dues, then shops its influence around Austin each session hoping to get some kind of carve out for its members so they can recruit more members and repeat the process next session.
Gambling junks-out states, costs more money than it brings in, and creates powerful political factions with zero scruples.
Bill Hammond, the head honcho at TAB, rudely, and seemingly with no sense of the damage he was doing his own cause, called Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico “third world countries”. Evidently, he thought insulting our legal-gambling next door neighbors would help Texans want to pass legislation to be more like them.
His comments, though rude, got laughter because there is something that strikes Texans as junky about how Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico look when we drive through those states.
What is it? Simple.
It is the gaudy, awful, decadent, degenerate billboard advertising for gambling that we are assaulted with when we drive through those states.
Keeping Texas first-world means opposing gambling expansion.
The good news is, the gambling expansion legislation TAB is supporting as “fiscal conservatives” is dead-on-arrival.
–WOAI pro-gambling piece with TAB wrongly portrayed