Las Vegas Casino Owner Steve Wynn is disgusted with the Obama Administration
Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas Steve Wynn, had his company’s fourth quarter financial result conference call yesterday with reporters. And during the Q&A a female reporter said to Steve Wynn, “Is it too early to say that maybe 2011 would be better, in other words, how do your 2011 bookings versus 2010, or just any comments on the volume of bookings or rate of bookings for 2010 or ’11 just to get a sense of whether you see any change at all?”
WYNN:
There are more questions afoot in this market in America that will impact ’11 than I have hair on my head, I’m happy to say, and I still have a full head of hair. I have more pessimism than I’ve had before, and it’s based upon the political environment in which we are living today. And it definitely is impacting Las Vegas. The president of the United States hasn’t missed one single opportunity to squelch Las Vegas. We get phone calls — and I’m not going to mention the names of the companies — from chairmen who say we don’t want to appear to be profligate because Barack Obama said this or that about Las Vegas.
It is preposterous that businesses are under attack in the United States of America. Anybody that makes over $250,000 in the form of a personal income tax return is now, by Washington definition, a rich person, when everybody who has got a college degree knows that the personal income tax rate in the United States of America is the business tax of America. I am disgusted and angry at the apparent ignorance of the administration and the Congress to recognize the fact that the individual tax rate in the United States of America is in fact a business tax of America. And if you keep banging on that, you will destroy the incentive for job formation in the United States of America. And that’s simple truth.
Why I’m pessimistic about Las Vegas, because those are our customers! Those people out there hustling their businesses, and God forbid, showing that they made a million dollars as a partnership or as an individual. Yeah, they’re the enemy now, they’re the rich folks. Well, until we get over this, America is in for hard times. The people that are gonna suffer from what’s going on are the working class of America. My 15 to 20,000 employees, they’re the ones that are in trouble, and until my employees get the drift of what’s being done to them, America is in trouble.
Wynn: Obama’s remarks bad for convention business
Las Vegas Sun
Steve Wynn touched on more than just finances during Tuesday’s Wynn Resorts earnings call. The casino owner joined city officials in their criticism of President Obama’s remarks on corporations spending taxpayer dollars in Las Vegas.
Obama said he doesn’t think the people who received benefits from the government should be going on junkets to expensive places or Las Vegas for wasteful spending … which stigmatized the convention business that could come to Las Vegas,” Wynn said.
Wynn said since the president made his remarks, a large corporation that didn’t receive taxpayer dollars pulled out of a $5 million convention at his resorts.
“It was a direct result of the comment made by the president,” Wynn said. “Whatever the president’s intentions were, it gives you an idea of how sensitive the public is.”
Wynn didn’t name the company that pulled out but he called the company “one of the healthiest in the country, much healthier than the government.”
Convention visitors to Las Vegas dropped 5 percent from 2007 to 2008, said Jeremy Handel, spokesman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
“In response to the bad economy and the misconceived press out there about the convention industry, we are developing a campaign in relation to that to express the importance of the meeting industry in Las Vegas and that Las Vegas is a place where business gets done,” Handel said.
After Obama’s comments, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. moved a three-day conference from Mandalay Bay to San Francisco, incurring a $600,000 cancellation penalty to skip town. Morgan Stanley, which has received $10 billion in bailout funds, canceled a trip for top employees to the Monte Carlo.
Wynn agreed that Congress needs to be critical of those spending federal bailout money but is afraid Obama’s remarks have characterized Las Vegas as a place of wasteful spending.
“We have hundreds of thousands of employees here, more than the auto industry. I hope that Uncle Sam recognizes that and that the rhetoric that is used is more considered in the future because it’s been demonstrated to us that it can have unintended consequences,” Wynn said.
Las Vegas is one of the most technologically advanced locations to hold meetings, and it’s a value compared to other cities, Wynn said.
Wynn said he’s created numerous jobs in the city with his Wynn Las Vegas and Encore resorts. He said the government can’t boast of the same accomplishment.
“I created 4,000 or 5,000 jobs here,” he said. “Does that make us a bad guy? How many new jobs did Uncle Sam create? Zero. “
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Wild Thing’s comment………
God bless Steve Wynn! He is absolutely right! Nick calls Obama the “cooler”. He destroys everything he touches, he stops progress dead in it’s tracks, he kills capitalism with his agenda and speeches. Obama is the most destructive president to the American dream our country has ever had. And the MOST dangerous to our beloved America.
This is what happens when a community organizer gets elected president.
obama is a business killer. His reckless(on purpose) spending is putting America’s economy and the dollar in the tank. Wait until inflation hits. Those that were too young during Carter’s inflation blitz are gonna be shocked.
I expect alot more Steve Wynns to speak out about govt. policies.
To the light standard Mussolini!!!!
Wynn was in Connecticut several years ago, offering to promote, develop and improve some liberal-inspired catastrophe here.
He left in disgust at having to deal with hundreds of prissy, soft-handed Democrat buffoons – imagine dozens of lard-faced Chris Dodds – who were appalled by Wynn’s association with gambling and casinos.
Since these were the same assholes who advanced the CT lottery, it didn’t make sense, but nothing these liberal morons do makes sense.
Today CT is second or third behind California for deficits per capita, unfunded liabilities, business climate and general liveability.
Whenever you think liberalism has hit rock bottom, it always opens up a new mine of idiocy and waste.
This fetish that the liberal world has with “rich people”, is so damned stupid as to be laughable. Sadly it is the playbook that they choose to use.
They criticize “rich businesses”, (rich by their standards, not by yours and mine), as evil, and want to shut them down.
Ask the working people of America when a poor person hired them and supported their family. They preach this because the Ghetto types, (of all colors), have shown that if the liberals just toss some small change in their direction, belittle them by saying: “Because you are not as good as we are, we will give you hiring and other preferences”, and supporting them with a welfare that is designed to keep them in poverty, has shown to work to gain the votes of those too damned dumb and/or lazy to learn about that which they are voting.
Nuf Sed
Obama’s and his progressive ilk are always talking about the ‘Working Man’, but what they really mean is Rank and File Union members. They got the best deal in the health care because their own leaders screwed up their pension funds. The only way to pay for them is almost free heaalth care. Since they bought obama lock stock and shackle he owes them everything and he’s trying to deliver. Hence, that scum sucking pig Andy Stern to head up the Fiscal commision, what the hell does this bozo know about finance, zip, zero, nada. All he knows is extortion from a company trying to make a payroll. Ergo, he fits right in with the obama crew.
When it comes to taxes if you are NON union you’re garbage and should have to pay to support the union and you obviously got your money illegally…hehe, sort of like the future generations of democrat voters…illegal Aliens.
If this bill goes down in flames and there is a good chance it will, obama’s toast.
I wish more businessmen would speak out like Mr. Wynn. Obama doesn’t have even the most elementary education on economics. Confidence drives the market and allows business to plan, expand and hire people. No one has confidence except the union leadership and the leftists. The job-killers.
Tell Dr. Zhicago and his Baracksheviks that RUBLES aren’t accepted in LA$ VEGA$! Wynn is a WINNER!! And NASCAR is in town?!
Rhod thank you so much for sharing about Wynn and CT. Good to see you.
Thank you everyone for your input and sharing.