Mildly amusing column in the Washington Post today … it\’s actually about bowling, from a dude who calls himself the Couch Slouch, and he\’s writing an open letter to Barack Obama on behalf of all middle Americans. What caught me was an aside … so good to know that the message is appropriately out there in the Beltway:
(By the way, Mr. President, let\’s talk cards for a moment. The government\’s got a deficit, no? Well, Internet poker is a cash cow that you should exploit: Legalize it, regulate it and levy it. Heck, you love playing poker — it\’s your duty as the nation\’s check-raiser-in-chief to open up this revenue stream and add big chips to the public\’s coffers. Shuffle up and tax!)
(P.S. on poker: Besides the fact you shouldn\’t play too much of it online — it\’s dangerously addictive; just imagine Bill Clinton\’s White House years if he had been playing no-limit Texas hold \’em under the handle \”slickwillie\” — can you make sure it\’s legit? With government regulation should come government safeguards to prevent software schemes and shenanigans that are inevitable with that much money on the virtual table.)
Is it just me, or is anyone else feeling like if we can\’t get poker laws corrected in 2009, then we probably never can. I mean this both on a federal and state (Texas) level. We\’ve got courts ruling in our favor left and right, we\’ve got a strong desire for new and reliable revenue streams, public opinion is on our side, our opponents seem stuck in the 20th century … and in Washington DC, our leading torchbearer — Barney Frank — has his hands all over everything to do with banks. If you haven\’t heard, this country\’s dealing with some major banking issues these days … conditions couldn\’t be riper, which has me thinking it really is just a matter of doing the nuts and bolts heavy lifting hard work hammering through procedural kinda stuff during a particularly crazy and hectic time, which could work both for or against us, depending on how we play it.
UPDATE: LOL, I\’m an idiot. I just realized The Couch Slouch is Norman Chad. I knew that. But still.
