Harrison County Plays While Louisville Pays (11/18/08) - WDRB 41 Louisville - News, Weather, Sports Community

Harrison County Plays While Louisville Pays (11/18/08)

Harrison County Plays While Louisville Pays (11/18/08)

A decade ago, when Kentucky and Clark and Floyd Counties in Indiana said "no" to casino gambling, Harrison County said "yes." Soon, Caesars - now the Horseshoe - opened its doors there. And they deserve congratulations as they celebrate their tenth anniversary.

Harrison County's far-sighted decision has so far netted it over 300 million dollars in tax revenue. They're rolling in cash, while their nay-saying neighbors are dealing with budget shortfalls and scrambling to put a good face on layoffs and service cutbacks.

Of course, Caesars was never targeting Harrison County's small population of 37,000. They just wanted to be as close to Louisville as possible, because they knew that's where the vast majority of its future patrons lived -- and they were right.

So, since 1998, Louisville gamblers have happily handed over something like 200 million dollars to make sure Harrison County's schools and roads are state-of-the-art, while our own city budget has become a patchwork mess.

That short 11-mile drive certainly isn't keeping Louisvillians from trying to win a few bucks at a slot machine. But it is keeping us from ever being anything but losers in the much bigger game of generating revenue.

And until we finally let reason rule over hypocrisy, we'll have only ourselves to blame.

What do you think? Call and let us know.

I'm Bill Lamb, and that's my...Point of View.