How rare is it for a visible corporate leader to speak publicly on anything but their latest green initiative?

July 2011 Conference Call

I believe in Las Vegas. I think its best days are ahead of it. But I’m afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States. You watch television and see what’s going on, on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing’s going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress. But everybody is so political, so focused on holding their job for the next year that the discussion in Washington is nauseating.

And I’m saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems–that keeps using that word redistribution. Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration. And it makes you slow down and not invest your money. Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America. You bet. And until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, it’s not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don’t want to say that. 

They’ll say, “Oh God, don’t be attacking Obama.” Well, this is Obama’s deal, and it’s Obama that’s responsible for this fear in America. The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution, and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don’t invest or holding too much money. We haven’t heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody’s afraid of the government, and there’s no need to soft peddling it, it’s the truth. It is the truth. And that’s true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman and I support Harry Reid. I support Democrats and Republicans. And I’m telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he’s gone, everybody’s going to be sitting on their thumbs.

You know, MGM aside for a moment. Last year we created almost 5,000 jobs and immediately became the target of the administration. Businesses that created jobs, let alone gaming companies that created jobs, had to be no good. I mean, 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. Every sub-chapter S, every individual proprietorship and every partnership in the United States of America files tax returns as individuals, and when they do, and they show that they made 2 million or 3 million or, God forbid, 4 million, they pay the income tax rate; they deduct their working expenses, their living expenses; and then they invest in a new store, a new shop, and most of the time 25% of their profits, quote, unquote, are tied up in accounts receivable or inventory. But all of the sudden, all of those people who make over 250,000 are rich folks to be fleeced. And if that’s job formation stimulation in America, I’m Mary Poppins. And if I sound angry about it and disgusted, 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, simple truth. And whether politicians like it or don’t like it means nothing to me. And that’s why I’m pessimistic about Las Vegas because those are our customers.

Those people out there hustling their business, and God forbid, showing that they made a million dollars as a partnership or as an individual. Yes, they’re the enemy now. They’re the rich folks. Well until we get over this, America’s in for hard times because what’s going to happen is the people that are going to suffer from what’s going on are the working class of America. My 15 or 20,000 employees, they’re the ones that are in trouble. The reason they’re in trouble is this demolition of the dollar is going to reduce the buying power of the working class of America as sure as we gave them a salary cut of 25%.

And that’s another thing that doesn’t seem to be clear to the brilliant people in Washington, D.C. They’re not just our customers, they are my employees. And until my employees get the drift of what’s being done to them, America’s in trouble. Next question.”