Senator Kyl & US Online Gambling

Senator Jon Kyl is using his political power to delay confirmations of nominees
to work at the Treasury Department. A critic of the online gambling industry
and an architect of the UIGEA, it is rumored that this delay is payback to
the Treasury Department for their December delay of implementing the UIGEA.

This is frustrating many conservative and liberal lawmakers. At the end of
a major financial crisis, their is no time to be delaying confirmations
of nominees for the Treasury Department, especially if it all stems from
the UIGEA. The UIGEA is an ill-crafted piece of legislation that was
attached to the Ports Security Bill in 2006 at the last moment when
many politicans that voted didn’t even realize it was attached.

“Here we are on Dec. 29, almost a year after the Inauguration, and there is
no Under Secretary of the Treasury,” Said ex-Fed chief Paul Volcker on
Charlie Rose’s show. “How can we run a government in the middle of a financial
crisis without doing the ordinary, garden-variety administrative work of
filling the relevant agencies?” Senator Kyl must be worried that the UIGEA
will eventually be repealed, and online gambling will be legalized in the US.

If the UIGEA gets thrown out, then online players, the US banking industry,
members of the Treasury Department, and state lotteries will be happy.