State Comptroller Peter Franchot stopped by today to touch base, as he does periodically. Not surprisingly Maryland’s November slots referendum topped the agenda. If approved, it would lead to 15,000 slot machines in five sites. Mr. Franchot is leading the public charge against the initiative, pitting him against the state’s power structure in the likes of Gov. Martin O’Malley and State Senate President Mike Miller. The Comptroller believes that slots would lead to all types of ills and is a silly way to try and deal with a short-term budget issue. Besides, he said, “If it’s approved, the legislature can turn these sites from slots parlors into casinos and by then we’re half pregnant when it comes to five more sites for slots.”

Now I’m against slots on a slew of levels, particularly religious ones. I just don’t see how gambling helps people. This is nothing new. Rabbi Leon of Modena wrote about this in his memoir in the early 1600s. (I even find it offensive when synagogues hold casino nights and cannot bring myself to bet more than a few chocolates during a dreidle game). I also believe that the General Assembly and Mr. O’Malley, as I wrote during the fall emergency legislative session, punted by tossing the question of slots back to the voters. So much for legislators taking the hard vote and paying the price – or reaping the rewards – at the polls.

Instead, we’re getting a costly, politically divisive and drawn out debate. If slots are defeated, Mr. O’Malley is going to say, “Now I have to slash programs such as education, help for the poor, etc. to balance the budget.” And if they are approved, he’ll not only find that the revenue is not what’s expected, but need to start increasing funds for gamblers’ anonymous and the likes. And with a predicted $35 billion changing hands, there will be corruption.

But the issue of balancing the state’s budget is real, especially as revenue keeps dropping due to declining consumer confidence. In fact, despite gas’s rise, gas tax is down from last year at this time. People just are not going out as much. At a coffee shop I frequent , a worker just told me business was down 50 to 60 percent. A friend who owns a restaurant says it’s down 30 to 40 percent.

Yikes. What will we do without gambling’s alleged financial windfall? Mr. Franchot’s idea: get the state’s leading business men and women together and some others to give hard advice. “They can do it in a non-ideological way,” he said. Well, they really cannot totally do that, but at least it will be in a fashion less invested in keeping certain jobs and certain department budgets in tact.

So I do like the general idea. Mind you, everyone knows that Mr. Franchot might be vying for Mr. O’Malley’s job, and the latter may be recruiting someone such as Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith to run against Mr. Franchot. So there’s a lot of political infighting going on here, too. Nothing new. Nor is the reality that if Marylanders rush into gambling parlors, more than a few will join a crowd in walking out a bit dazed and wondering what they just did.