Beacon Hill surrenders to casinos

And yet I can’t help but feel a little sad.

The capitulation to expanded gambling in Massachusetts represents a failure of imagination and will. After years of relentless attacks on broad-based taxes as the fairest way to fund public needs, even liberals are disheartened. Why not just accept the revenues from what former governor William Weld called “voluntary taxation’’ instead?

Here’s why. Gambling revenue - like user fees, naming rights, specialty license plates, and other forms of “voluntary’’ contributions to government - erodes a fundamental idea of democracy: that we’re all in this together. Instead of all people contributing equitably to the common good, a casino economy fractures the social compact. And it asks the most from those who can afford it least.

Let’s face it, gambling isn’t a favorite pastime of the rich. An effort back in the 1980s to establish a Massachusetts “arts lottery,’’ with a high-cost ticket dedicated to funding cultural programs, fizzled badly because the target audience wouldn’t take the bet. An anonymous wag put it best: Gambling is “a tax on people who are bad at math.’’

But it’s galling to see our entertainment dollars defecting to Connecticut and other states with casinos, supporters say. We need slot machines too, so we can recapture the money that is leaking out of Massachusetts - and fleece our own share of suckers from other states.

Beyond the beggar-thy-neighbor attitude this betrays, there’s still a good chance the gamblers losing their money in our new casinos will be mostly locals. At the vast new Marina Bay Sands complex in Singapore, only people with a foreign passport are allowed in free; Singapore citizens are charged a hefty entrance levy. But I don’t think that policy will fly in Revere.