The gaming board: Spinning the wheels

The only thing more infuriating than the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board leasing expensive vehicles for its very well-paid members is the board's abject ignorance about who is paying for its luxuriance.

Five of the seven board members use sedans or sport utility vehicles paid for by taxpayers. Members may be reimbursed up to $650 a month for car leases and insurance and 20.25 cents per mile when on board business.

They also may use their Cadillacs, Chevrolet Impalas, Subaru Outbacks, GMC Yukons and Mercury Mountaineers whenever their hearts desire.

Members are paid $145,000 annually; there's $5,000 more for the chairman. Nevada regulators make less and don't get cars.

When Kenneth McCabe (the GMC Yukon) was confronted about its outrageous ostentatiousness, he said the board was "trying to put that whole business behind us."

Or as they say in Las Vegas, what happens here, stays here.

The board has the gall to suggest that no taxpayer money is being used to pay its expenses. They are being paid with a loan from state taxpayers that will be repaid from gambling proceeds.

"The expenses of running the board come from casino operators," said board spin doctor Nick Hays.

But that revenue is the taxpayers' money.

If the gaming board cannot even comprehend that , no wonder its members only are looking out for themselves.