For someone often regarded as brash and confrontational, Wisconsin 
Gov. Scott Walker (R) has been mediating an intrastate tribal dispute in a judicious, deliberative fashion. He’s extended the timeline on his yea-or-nay decision, the better to sort through varying figures (including some fuzzy math) submitted by the tribes in dispute. The Menominee Tribe wants to invest $808 million to create a racino at Kenosha‘s Dairyland Greyhound Park. Gargantuan Potowatomi Bingo in Milwaukee says that would cost it $158 million in lost revenue in Year One alone. The Ho-Chunk Nation would lose a smaller chunk of revenue: $19.5 million over the same time period.
(The Menominee would partner with Hard Rock International and the design rendering looks suspiciously like it was hastily repurposed from Hard Rock’s rejected Massachusetts casino.)
“The Menominee estimate the Milwaukee losses, in a report filed with Walker’s office, to be about $62.6 million over four years while suggesting no Ho-Chunk losses,” reports the Milwaukee Business Journal. Walker is skeptical that a comparable threat would emerge from Waukegan, on the Illinois side of the border. The Menominee scoff at Ho-Chunk job losses and minimize those in Milwaukee. For their part, they promise 6,556 jobs, including 1,800 “indirect.” (See, this is where the math starts getting fuzzy. Besides, Walker has yet to quantify “no new net gaming.”)
The Bureau of Indian Affairs allows that “Milwaukee will face some indirect detrimental economic impacts … however, it will be relatively minor and short term.” (Easy for them to say.) The governor says he is 
“intrigued” by the Menominee argument that tribal compacts with the state already provide a make-good for tribes that lose business to new competition, giving the Menominee a glimmer of hope. “I’m not necessarily revealing whether I agree or disagree with that, I just think that’s an interesting legal argument so I want to spend the time and do the due diligence to look at that option,” he said.
The Potowatomi, for their part, claim that 3,000 jobs would be lost in the first year … even though they employ but 2,615. Another 2K worth of “direct and indirect” jobs would be lost over five years. However, as the tribe notes, the Menominee scaled down their project without downsizing their job-creation projections. So, all told, Walker has a very sticky ball of wax in his hands.
If Americans lead the world in avoirdupois, Las Vegas should be the capital of culinary excess. Yet how are supposed to get fat on mingy portions like these? On the other hand, there are the celebrity burgers. Just looking at them makes me want to schedule an angioplasty.
