Dean Heller: Fiscal Cliff No Big Deal

From the Las Vegas Sun:
It’s sad times for online poker in the Senate.
A few months ago, Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and Dean Heller were talking big about the Internet poker bill they would be sure to pass before the year was out.
Now they are hinting, in noticeably deflated tones, that a big poker bill may once again be a political impossibility.
Heller and Reid blamed different political forces of nature Tuesday for stymieing their best efforts to get a bill legalizing online poker onto the Senate’s agenda.
Poker “is an issue that’s on the front burner for me, for Sen. Reid and Sen. Kyl,” Heller said Tuesday. “The front burner for everybody else is this rules package and the fiscal cliff ... it’s just hard getting it to the forefront so that we can make it an issue and get it moving.”
“I said on a number of occasions that to bring an Internet poker bill to come to the floor you need 15, 17 Republican votes,” Reid said Tuesday. “At this stage, we’ve gotten none.”  http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/nov/27/hopes-dim-online-poker-legislation/
I think Internet poker is a huge mistake.  It will cost Nevadans their jobs in the entertainment and casino industry and it will encourage more gambling and underage problems.
But for Dean Heller to say that this bill is more important than the upcoming tax increases and defense cuts shows that he is out of touch with reality.