"The governor's office has to step in and resolve this issue. The Gaming Commission falls under the auspices of the governor."
Page F1From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 31 August 2026
National debt hits $40 trillion; Democrats rush to spare NYC's first casino a 72% tax rate.
As it ran on the front
The national debt crossed $40 trillion this week. That's the number in the filing. Not a projection, not a talking point — the number, as reported, prompting fresh questions about a fiscal commission that has been asked similar questions before.
Meanwhile, in Albany, the ask on the table is a 72% tax rate on New York City's first full casino, and the people pushing Governor Hochul to block it are Democrats. Not the casino's lawyers. The party.…
…(cont) Now, I run the two lines side by side, the way you'd run a ledger against a bank statement, and here's what doesn't reconcile: the country is $40 trillion in the hole, a hole big enough that we're forming commissions to study it, and the specific piece of new revenue getting fought over this week is a tax on a casino. Not lowered. Blocked, before it's even been collected.
I want to be precise about the number, because 72% sounds like a lot until you ask 72% of what, and the filing says it's the rate on gross gaming revenue at one property, which — for a casino operating in a market with no local competition yet — is a licensing fee with extra steps, not confiscation. Casinos have operated at higher effective rates elsewhere and kept opening on schedule.
So the gap, hon, is this: we don't have $40 trillion, both parties agree on that enough to keep floating commissions about it, but the one revenue line anybody's actively lobbying to shrink this week belongs to a gambling operator, not a household. Nobody is holding an emergency session to block a rate hike on a grocery bill. The emergency-session energy is reserved for the casino's rate.
That's not a motive I'm assigning anybody. That's just where the two line items landed on the same wire, on the same day. The debt's number is public. The tax rate's number is public. The list of who's making the calls to Albany about which one is also, eventually, going to be public, and I'd start asking now instead of after the commission issues its report.
“They tell you there's no money for the subway or the school lunch program, but somehow there's always a task force forming to make sure a casino doesn't have to pay full freight. Forty trillion in the hole and the fight of the week is protecting a slot machine's profit margin — follow whose calls get returned.”
“This is a business-friendly tax posture, designed to keep the casino competitive in a crowded regional market — well, it's not that crowded yet, it's the city's first one, so competitive against future hypothetical competitors, sure, let's go with that.”
The receipts
The growth of the national debt beyond the $40 trillion mark and the increase in yields on long-term Treasuries have reignited talks of a bipartisan fiscal commission. Fiscal hawks are urging action. In addition to the towering $40…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.