RI stimulus money goes to the dogs

PROVIDENCE – State officials have determined that the estimated $1.1 billion in federal stimulus money is “not enough” to help residents survive a deep recession, so they are proposing a risky scheme to eliminate Rhode Island’s budget shortfall once and for all.
“Basically the plan is to take the stimulus check and place it all on a greyhound to win Saturday at Twin Rivers/Lincoln dog track,” said Leslie Gowk, spokeswoman for the nonprofit organization Stimulate Rhode Island. “The payoff would solve the state’s problems for the next 20 years.”
Stimulate Rhode Island is an ad hoc, de facto committee of economists and citizens advising Gov. Don Carcieri about how to maximize the returns on Rhode Island’s stimulus money.
Committee member Manny St. Hilaria of Cumberland, a regular bettor at Twin Rivers, who keeps a barn of “frisky” retired greyhounds on his property, said the plan isn’t as crazy as it sounds.
“It only sounds radical if you don’t know anything about the dogs,” St. Hilaria said. “Without getting into specifics, one of the guys on our committee knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a dog that’s going to win on Saturday. It would be foolish not to take advantage of the situation. We owe it to the taxpayers.”
Neither Gowk nor St. Hilaria would confirm the name of the dog, but a source close to the racetrack believes it to be Blue Note, a greyhound that has placed in seven of its last 20 races, winning three, since moving to Rhode Island from a Florida kennel. Today’s tote board lists Blue Note at 20:1 odds, meaning that if the bet were placed now, the state’s take would be $22 billion.