Well the California primary and special elections are over and our good buddy Gov. Schwarzenegger and his Democrat cronies have put yet another one over on the good but not very well informed citiczens of California. The man that I (Oh, what an idiot I was) and the majority of California voters elected as our Governor made a very sweet deal, with the backing of his cronies in the Democratic Party, with four very wealthy Indian Tribes that would allow them to add thousands of slot machines to their 'gaming' casinos while paying the State of California virtually nothing for the privilege.

When they got caught making this deal, which they tried to slip through without a vote by the people of California, Propositions 94,95,96,97 ended up on the ballot. The four Indian tribes immeaditly began a advertising propaganda campaign spending between $100 and $200 million. The Governator and his buddies starting promoting the passing of these propositions and tons of misinformation and vague half truths filled the airwaves and the print media.

The biggest piece of misinformation put out was that the needy state of California would recieve through this deal a much needed $9 billion dollars. No one ever said how anyone came up with this figure of $9 billion dollars which by the way was to have been recieved over the next twenty years (something barely mentioned by the Tribes or the politicians) or how much more should have been recieved with other deals. No one mentioned that according to the State Of California, we would be lucky to recieve $250 million over the next four years which was not much more that we would have recieved if these propositions had not been passed. No one mentioned the added costs of allowing these thousands of extra slot machines to be put in play, such as additional road work and repairs, additional police, fire and other service costs to the cities and counties around where these casinos are situated. These costs will have to be spent in order to handle the problems that come up when tens of thousands of additional people invade the area in order to play those additional seventeen thousand slot machines.

I could go on and on, but let's just face it. The people of the State of California got taken once again by it's elected representatives.

Some people ask, why would our representatives to this to us. I don't know, could it be the $150 million in contributions already given to these representatives and their favorite projects. Or could it be the $100s of millions more that these representatives hope to recieve from those four Indian Tribes. And maybe it could be the $100s of millions in contributions they hope to recieve in the future from other Indian Tribes that will want the same sweetheart deals.

All I know is that it is our fault that we got taken. Too many California voters trusted our politicians (how gullible can we be?) and, as usual, too many California voters did not bother to do research before they voted. Will the voters of California ever learn? Probably not!

David G. Hallstrom, Sr.
Legal Resources and Lifestyle Information