Dear Editor:

The recent testimony by U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf before the Maryland House of Delegates, an excerpt of which was published March 23 in The Washington Post, showed that he will stop at nothing, including lying, to advance his personal agenda on gambling.

While he touts the fact that he authored legislation establishing a federal commission to study gambling, he contradicts the panel’s findings that found no link between gambling and higher rates of bankruptcy, crime or pathological gambling.

Before the 1999 commission report was even printed, Rep. Wolf continued on his relentless crusade to document what he knew to be true. He directed the General Accounting Office to conduct a study on social costs, and he requested a study on bankruptcy by the U.S. Department of the Treasury; both studies, conducted at additional cost to taxpayers, confirmed the findings of the federal commission.

It’s unfortunate when any public official uses his position to disseminate misleading information. The truth is, after the federal commission report and numerous independent government studies, we do know the facts, and it is disingenuous of Rep. Wolf to misrepresent those findings.

Sincerely,

Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr.
President and CEO