The odds are piling up against Gov. Terry Branstad's proposal to raise casino taxes, despite a recent Iowa Poll that found 56 percent of adults in favor of raising the gaming tax.
I spoke this week with an opponent of expanded gambling and a lawmaker who wants to expand it.
Both said Branstad's plan is a bad idea.
The governor has proposed raising gambling taxes
"It's a job killer," said Ed Failor, president of Muscatine-based Iowans for Tax Relief.
The governor's plan to increase gambling taxes "will put thousands of Iowans out of work, and that will raise my taxes," said Failor, a gambling opponent.
Meanwhile, in the Legislature, Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Cedar Falls, said: "I have not talked with a single legislator who supports" the idea of a casino tax increase.
Danielson is sponsoring legislation that would legalize in-state Internet poker and eliminate the need for periodic referendums for casinos.
Some folks have suggested that one way to win votes for a casino tax increase would be to attach it to Danielson's gaming expansion bill.
But Danielson said: "I would consider an amendment that increases the taxes a poison pill amendment."
"I will argue strongly against it, and if it passes, the entire bill will be dead," he said.
Opponents of the tax increase have been passing around a study by former state economist Harvey Siegelman that claims the tax increase proposed by the governor would result in six of Iowa's 17 casinos shutting down.
Those six casinos employ 2,800 workers who would lose their jobs, Siegelman said.
In addition, his study says: "The remaining 11 facilities will reduce their payrolls by as little as 25 percent or as much as 50 percent, laying off another 1,700 to 3,100 workers."
Casino payrolls would drop between $136 million and $181 million a year, the study says, and the unemployed casino workers would draw jobless benefits of up to $48 million.
When you add in other factors - including lower property taxes, lost vendor and food sales and empty hotel rooms, and then plug those numbers into a model that includes a community multiplier effect - the result is a loss of up to 9,500 jobs and up to $1 billion in consumer spending, according to Siegelman's study.
At first glance, Failor's opposition to the tax increase might not seem like a big deal, but it is.
The name of his group, Iowans for Tax Relief, implies that it would be opposed to any and all tax increases, but that is not true.
During the group's 34-year history, it has never opposed an increase in a sin tax until now, Failor said.
Sin taxes are taxes on tobacco, liquor and gambling, activities that some people believe are morally wrong.
Failor said he is personally opposed to gambling and voted no in a referendum that would have allowed casinos in his home county of Muscatine.
Iowans for Tax Relief backed Branstad in last year's Republican primary. Failor and the group's founder, David Stanley, both contributed to Branstad's campaign.
So it's no small deal for Failor to now be speaking out against the proposal by the governor, who is a soul mate of Iowans for Tax Relief on so many other issues.
But, said Failor: "As long as gambling is legal, why on Earth are we going to do everything we can to weaken its ability to succeed, and then cost jobs in these communities?"
"And it's beyond jobs," he said, "because these casinos give to their community foundations," which support a wide variety of charitable, cultural and educational causes.
Raising casino taxes sends the wrong message, Failor said.
"You think other industries are going to want to come to Iowa when they see what's happened to this industry, which is now making a lot of money, so they want to tax the heck out of it?" he said.
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