By JOE CORBO
Atlantic City, NJ, October 2007 — The Casino Revenue Fund generated approximately $400 million last year to fund the Pharmaceutical Assistance to the Aged and Disabled, or "PAAD" program. This program benefits approximately 200,000 New Jersey senior citizens living on fixed incomes, as well as disabled residents. PAAD includes a prescription drug program that allows eligible New Jerseyans to purchase their medicines for only $5, regardless of the cost of the medication. This is a vitally important program, given the soaring cost of prescription drugs. In other states, thousands of people have been forced to seek medication outside the United States where the costs are lower. Or, even worse, the high cost has forced them to forego some medications, altogether, presenting a very real danger to themselves.
While this laudable prescription drug program represents the overwhelming percentage of expenditures from the tax fund, our industry’s revenue supports other endeavors that help seniors in various ways. Such benefits include educational, cultural, intellectual development and transportation service programs. The Casino Revenue Fund also supports a community-care program for the elderly and disabled, which offers community-based services to assist individuals to remain in or return to the community rather than enter a nursing facility.
Since 1978, when our industry was born, $5.7 billion has been paid into the fund to support these varied services for seniors. It is no exaggeration to say that, without a healthy and thriving casino industry, that $5.7 billion would not have been available. New Jersey’s individual and corporate taxpayers would have been asked to provide the money — or else that broad range of assistance programs would simply not exist. In effect, the casino industry has relieved the State’s taxpayers of the need to produce nearly $400 million annually for programs that give seniors and the disabled the peace of mind that comes from the knowledge that they will be able to afford their medications today, tomorrow, and well into the coming years.
Our industry also spends $2.2 billion a year buying goods and services from approximately 12,000 New Jersey vendors, large and small, in all 21 counties. For example, we spent more than $231 million with businesses in Middlesex County, more than $56 million in Essex County, and more than $45 million in Warren County. Our purchases throughout the entire state have helped create approximately 20,000 jobs at various vendors that sell us quality goods and services. This directly benefits those communities in which the businesses are located, and thus helps bolster the economy of the entire state.
New Jersey’s casino industry also benefits the entire state through the dollars we invest with the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (“CRDA”). As we detailed in a recent past article, from the creation of CRDA in 1984 through the end 2006, more than $1 billion has been generated by our industry to help redevelop blighted areas and address the pressing social and economic needs of the entire State. In fact, the CRDA is required by law to develop projects in every part of the state and there is a fund dedicated solely to projects in North Jersey.
We are justifiably proud to call ourselves New Jersey’s Casino Industry. This is where we live. This is where we do business. This is where we put our dollars to work.
P.S. CANJ is excited to announce that its website is up and running. Visit the site at www.casinoassociationofnewjersey.org. Next month’s column will spotlight the website.
Reprinted with the permission of Casino Connection.
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