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on the shot. Let me see. Yes, Sean. Rose, could you spell your last name for us? Support of Here and Now is made possible in part by Strong Financial, helping investors build and manage wealth for over 25 years. Strong Financial, helping you build a strong portfolio. I'm Frederica Freiberg. Welcome to Here and Now. US bomber planes fly to the Pacific to send North Korea a military message, even in the shadow of a US attack on Iraq.

Who's the bigger threat? Two leading experts are here. Meanwhile, at the state capital, the budget battle rages. Tonight we'll hear how federal Medicaid money may or may not be part of the deficit solution. And at week's end, expanded Indian gaming is still on the fast track as Republicans continue to put the brakes on. Beyond politics of Indian casino deals are the health and criminal concerns that could go with gamblers who are addicted to wagering. We begin tonight exploring those concerns with Linda Sol, who is the public information director with Potawatomi Bingo and Casino. She joined us from Milwaukee. Thanks so much for being here from Milwaukee. And also Rose Gruber is the director of the statewide nonprofit Wisconsin Council on problem gambling. For being here in Madison with us. And first to you, Rose, do more places to gamble and expanded games, translating to more problem or compulsive gamblers? Well, at the Wisconsin Council on problem gambling, we really put our focus on the five to seven percent of the population that has a problem with gambling. We don't we maintain neutrality and the issue of legalized gambling.

And and five to seven percent. How many people does that mean in Wisconsin have a problem in Wisconsin at five percent? That's approximately 285,000 people with a problem. That's a lot of people. It is a lot of people. Yes. And yet you you don't necessarily believe that having more casinos or or more lottery scratch off tickets means more problems in that way. We haven't seen that. There's always a risk. You know, with any type of behavior, there's a risk. But we've not seen those numbers jumping dramatically when gambling increases. Certainly as accessibility increases, you may have some people trying it that would not have otherwise tried gambling. That doesn't mean they're going to become addicted to it. Let's talk about what that means. A problem gambler versus a compulsive gambler versus someone who just likes to go and play. Okay. Social gambler, which would be the wanting to play person. And that's where most of the population falls into is someone who can take 20 or $50. Set a set amount of time that they're going to gamble whether it be the lottery, football games, the casino.

And they know that chances are they're not going to win and they'll lose their money. But you know, it was fun. It was a fun social activity. Just like going to a movie, going out to dinner. Problem gamblers, one who it's starting to mean a little bit more to them. The gambling is taking on a little bit more focus in their life. They're spending more money than they had. They may be going with a set amount of money, but then you know, cashing a check or getting some money out of the time machine. And it's just starting to be a little more important in their life. A compulsive gambler is one where it becomes completely out of control. They cannot stop their whole focus in life becomes the gambling. It's an addiction just like any other addiction. The gambling emphasizes them from whatever pain they may be experiencing in their life. Linda's whole in Milwaukee. Do the casinos and specifically the tribal casinos take some blame sometimes for the problem or compulsive gambler? Well, we view it as taking responsibility and certainly addressing the issue as it relates to guests that visit our property.

We provide an entertainment experience to adults and sometimes those behaviors can become addictive versus a recreational activity. And we try to address that by providing access to information to service providers that are equipped to counsel them in various areas. Now, specifically, you actually do some things within the casinos also, don't you? That's correct. Providing access to information for our guests or another visitor who might have a friend or family member that might be experiencing some problems. We do have information available to them. Certainly that they can privately take in the comfort of their own home and call into the 24 hour help line that is managed by the Wisconsin Council on problem gambling. We also work with our management training program to make sure that our employees are trained properly to perhaps identify some areas that might be of concern with guests who may have visited with us. We also work with our employee assistance program as well as some other self restriction policies that are available to our guests if they decide they might need some help.

What do you look for when you're looking specifically for someone who might be in the casino who has a definite problem? Well, we don't look for someone that might have a problem. What we do in fact do is try to make certain that our guests experience is comfortable and that they are feeling good about being with us. And certainly we want to make sure that we take care of our guests by just being observant and making certain that we are providing them a good entertainment experience. If we encounter someone that might be showing some indicators that they have some discomfort and that is provided to us through our training, then we might offer them some additional options that they might consider. Perhaps they might like to leave for a few hours, perhaps have something to eat, but really to give them some options that they might not have thought about. Rose, you were saying you look for the point where it's not fun anymore. When someone is becoming addicted, it's not about a social activity. There becomes a drive there for the next win.

Compulsive gamblers, if they lose, they'll go back to win, try to win. If they win, they'll go back to win some more because it's not about the money once it gets to that point. It's about the action, it's about the behavior that's going on. Is there a point at which a compulsive or a problem or even a social gambler would say, well, the state is sanctioning all this and this is great and it's helping the state budget. And boy, there's a lot of retickets at every stop and go. They see that and they say, well, it must be okay. Well, a problem gambler or a compulsive gambler rather, they're going to gamble no matter what. Gambling has been around for hundreds of years before it was legalized by any state. And again, we really put our focus into that 5% to 7% and their problem in trying to help them with that, letting them know what types of things to pay attention to, letting them know what resources are available directly in their communities. Let's get to that too. Both of you, what resources are available and what should people do if they themselves feel they have a problem with this or they know someone who does or they see someone maybe next to them at the casino or elsewhere that looks as though they're having a problem. For us, anyone in the state can call our 1-800-gamble-5 number. We answer that phone 24 hours a day every day of the year. And we hear from as many family members or concerned friends or employers as we do gamblers.

So it certainly is a line that's available for everyone. When someone calls that line, what we do is initially if they're in some type of an immediate crisis, try to work them through that crisis. We are able to assess if there's any potential suicidal thoughts, any of those types of behaviors. And then certainly we have an emergency protocol that would take place. And then we do referrals to gamblers, anonymous meetings, gamenon meetings for family members, and then therapists that have been trained to deal specifically with that issue. Is it true that some casinos, the workers will actually not allow certain people in if they've made an arrangement, say, don't let me in because I've got a problem. And if I come here wanting to gamble, please tell me to go away. Well, at the two casinos that are operated by the Forest County Potawatomi community, we do have a self-restriction agreement that is available to any guests that has made the decision that they would like to consider this as an option. We meet with them. We review the agreement with them. It is for one year period. And it basically is an honor agreement. And what we say is, is that if we recognize through our security and surveillance methods that you are visiting with us, then through this agreement, we will take steps to escort you by your own wishes away from our property.

This is an honor agreement. We also work to remove them from our marketing lists and mailing lists so that they won't receive any additional information from us during that period. We'll really try to work with them to ensure that they have the resources to access to the resources that they need. Let us all in Milwaukee. Thanks very much, Rose Gruber here in Madison. Thank you as well. The future of gambling and gaming compacts have all but stalled budget talks at the state capital talks that will eventually get around to the matter of $408 million worth of back Medicaid payments. The Governor Doyle says the federal government owes Wisconsin. What about that? Well, there was someone over here who is following that matter in the budget as well as others. And he is UW political science professor Don Kettle. Thanks very much for being here. I have pleasure to be with you. Professor, so on this money from the feds that the Governor wants, describe what that is briefly and whether or not you think we're going to get it.

It's an extraordinarily complicated maneuver but it works something like this. The state was reimbursed a couple of years ago over the last several years for certain level of Medicaid payments, medical assistance for poorer citizens for the most part. And there's a federal program that allows states to be reimbursed at a higher level than they might have been reimbursed for previously. And so with the states proposing on doing is having money that it would give to the counties, having the counties give it back to the states to get reimbursed then for the difference of the two payments and have the feds make it out of check payable to the state of Wisconsin. The problem is this is a risky venture. The people who are in charge of this program at the federal level are now saying, this is getting out of hand from their point of view, it's costing too much money. There's an act of effort to try to crack down, to crank down on their ability to prove this. And in particular, there's a lot of worry that if we approve this from one state, there may be 49 others in line as well. A lot of people are saying, we're not so sure that the odds are good that this in fact will be approved. So that's a big hole. There's another $500 million whole with transportation fund money that the Republicans apparently really don't want to make part of this budget to help balance it. You have a billion dollar whole there.

It's important to remember, we're talking about a $3.2 billion deficit. This is a billion dollars, a third of what it would take to fill it. If that money disappears, the implications for the rest of the budget are just enormous. The governor put together in a very skillful budget politically. What he did was to say, here's as far as I can go, you want to go further, you tell me where you're going to make those cuts. If you make any further cuts, it means aid to local governments, which means probably either service reductions or higher property taxes. It means more state layoffs, higher tuition at the university, means a bunch of things that in many ways the Republicans would have a hard time embracing. He's really put the Republicans in a difficult corner on this issue. Because none of that then would be his fault. He would say, look, I put together a budget. You don't like it. You're the one increasing local property taxes. You're the one increasing tuition. And we're in the middle of what is kind of a middle stage of the budget, it's going to be the blame game.

You have said before that you think when all of this kind of settles out and the worst becomes reality, that many citizens will say, you know what, just raise my taxes. I've talked to a couple of citizens, some of whom are going to be directly affected by the budget are saying, you know, I wish we had another option here. I wish we had the choice maybe to think about higher taxes, because we're not sure we're going to like this kind of cut in spending that we're going to be talking about. Nobody really wants to increase taxes. Everybody thinks their taxes are too high. But the real impact of the spending cuts we're talking about is something that at this point, I think almost no one has a full idea about it. In the next few months, we may find out in a very painful way just what we're talking about in terms of finding $3.2 billion with the cuts to balance this budget. All right, Professor Don Kettle, thank you very much. I think we move now from the state capital to our nation's capital and beyond as formal deadlines for Iraqi arms disclosures are debated of functioning nuclear reactor and North Korea is brewing up diplomatic trouble. And U.S. military action in that part of the world. This week, American bombers were sent to Guam to enhance U.S. military presence in that region in the absence of diplomatic movement in North Korea.

What are the risks in North Korea as we concentrate on Iraq? Gary Milholin is an expert on nuclear arms. He's director of the Wisconsin project on nuclear arms control. He joins us from Washington. Dr. Ed Reid has been to North Korea nearly 20 times in the last decade. He's the associate director for the UW Center on East Asian Studies. And gentlemen, thanks very much to both of you for being here. First to Washington and you, Gary Milholin, what kind of threat does North Korea represent to the U.S. and the world? Well, North Korea represents the threat that we've sort of dreamed about in our nightmares for a long time and hope would never come to pass. It looks now as if North Korea is poised to produce enough plutonium for about five more nuclear weapons. The intelligence agencies estimate that now North Korea has enough for perhaps one or two, but if North Korea starts up a plutonium processing plant and runs through that plant, some fuel rods from a small reactor that it now has on stock, then by the end of the summer, North Korea could have enough plutonium for five more bombs. And as we know, North Korea has sold just about everything it has made. So we now have the prospect that terrorist groups, other countries such as Iran, Iraq, or Libya, or Syria, could be customers of North Korea for nuclear warheads.

We've never lived in that kind of a world where it's possible for a city to be attacked anonymously by a bomb which can't be assigned anybody in particular. Well, it's unclear what this means for the future except that it'll be something we haven't lived through before. And as we speak in your estimation, does this represent a bigger threat to us than Iraq? I think this dwarf that is the risk that this sort of thing would happen, dwarfs the whatever risks you think are presented in Iraq now. Nobody has suggested that Iraq is immediately capable of making a number of nuclear warheads. And so on a scale of urgency, North Korea is much higher. What do you suppose the North Koreans might want to do with this capability?

Well, I think like any state and any regime, they are really interested in their own survival. I agree with those that feel that North Korea is not acquiring this capability in order to attack another country. Certainly South Korea, the present administration and the previous administration in South Korea did not feel that this was the purpose of these programs. North Korea feels that for its survival, for its security, it needs two things. One, it needs to change what it's been doing in terms of its economy. It needs to engage the world in trade, to invite investment in, to open up. But it's very fearful of doing that because it's been an isolated society. In order to feel secure enough to take the risk of opening up, I think it seeks security guarantees from South Korea, from the United States, that it would not be taken advantage of, it would not be attacked. And over the last two years, it seems to me that it's been their goal. And they achieved part of it when the summit meeting took place between the President of South Korea, Kim Daejun and the leader of North Korea in the summer of 2000.

After that, they sought very aggressively to have some similar kind of understanding with the United States and almost achieved it, at the end of the Clinton administration. Now, meanwhile, we hear, we understand that they were also, well, during that period, they had shut down under an agreement with the US in 1994, the plutonium producing small nuclear power plants. What we've learned recently is that apparently they've had another program to enrich uranium, which was not part of that agreement, but could produce nuclear weapons also. I think what they really would like, and since this program was exposed, and they've demanded, is they call it a non-aggression pact with the United States. I think they would like very much to engage in the United States in a dialogue that would lead to a formal agreement that would be binding on the United States, that it would not exercise a preemptive strike against North Korea.

That it would be safe to undertake the reforms that it thinks it needs to do. These kinds of diplomatic discussions are not happening, though, is that accurate? That's right. And Gary Mulholland, you have some ideas on that. Why do you suppose the US hasn't gone that direction with North Korea? It's hard for me to understand why we haven't done that. Obviously, the North Koreans are engaging in blackmail. They are in a dangerous pattern now of provoking the United States and sort of defying us to do our worst. And in exchange for stopping that behavior, they want to have bilateral discussions. It's easy to say that you shouldn't give into blackmail and you shouldn't agree to bilateral discussions under those conditions. But it's in our interest to pick up the phone tomorrow and ask the North Koreans if, in exchange for bilateral discussions with us, they will freeze their nuclear program.

And they will walk it back to the stage it was in before this present breakdown occurred. That is, let us see where those fuel rods are, assure us that those fuel rods are not being converted into nuclear weapon material. And that will give us some time, few months, perhaps many months, to figure out what the North Koreans want and whether we can give it to them to the extent that they would feel secure. I think we need to do that. I think the alternative is simply to either watch them become a rogue nuclear state to a greater extent than they are now, or go to war. And neither of those is really acceptable. Dr. Read, you're nodding your head in agreement. No, I totally agree. I agree that it's a dangerous situation and that talks, bilateral talks immediately are needed. And I think in coming to that decision, the Bush administration needs to recognize, and American people need to recognize that over the last two years, the momentum in North Korea has been in the direction that we wanted them to move in.

And South Koreans, this is a new element. The South Korean people, apparently a majority, and certainly the new South Korean government also feel that North Korea has been moving in the positive direction. This new nuclear program doesn't fit the pattern. And what I would like to see the Bush administration do is sit down with him and say, look, we acknowledge that you have been moving in the direction of opening. You have engaged in all kinds of interaction, economic, military discussions. They've even had nuclear scientists from North Korea touring South Korea nuclear plants. So sports events, cultural events, railroads are being reconnected. This nuclear program doesn't fit. Let's talk about how to get it out of the way so this momentum can continue.

But meanwhile, Gary Mulholland in Washington, that's not happening, and they're not picking up the phone. Iraq seems to be on the front burner. What in your estimation is likely to happen now? I'm afraid that the Bush administration either cannot handle two crises at once. And I think there's a lot of evidence for that. The handful of people who are in charge of our national security policy are completely obsessed with Iraq. And it doesn't look to me as if they're able to take on the difficulties of a challenge like North Korea at the same time. We'll need to leave it there because we have a satellite deadline out there in Washington. We appreciate you joining us from there. Gary Mulholland and Dr. Ed Reid from the University of Wisconsin. Thanks very much to both of you. Thank you. Now for something on the lighter side. In these tough times, we have to look for small pleasures anywhere we can. And so even if you are not a basketball fan, you have to smile at the side of 3,000 people swarming a basketball floor to carry other human beings around on their shoulders.

In this case, the humans happen to be the new big 10 basketball champions, the UW Badgers. The title came Wednesday night in a thrilling last minute win over Illinois at the Cole Center. I never thought I would see a scene like this. And if you missed the game on Wednesday or would like to relive those moments one more time, Wisconsin Public Television will re-broadcast the entire game on Sunday night again that Sunday night at 10. Finally tonight, we end the show where we began on the subject of gambling. Our singing commentator Peter Lighty has a compact to lampoon the political landscape wherever and whenever he can. This week, he re-negotiates the Kenny Rogers Classic, the gambler into an updated version for our times he calls the governor. It's tonight's end-in-side commentary. Here's Peter Lighty and bassist Pat Logderman.

On a cold winter's evening in a crowded casino, I met up with the governor. He was sitting at the slots and as soon as I spied him, I sat down beside him and right before my eyes, he hit the big jackpot. I said, go, you got the touch and I was reading in the paper about how you found a way to make the budget balance out. And when you did the deal with the casino operators, I heard some legislators began to scream and shout. He said they're playing politics. We got a giant hole to fix and we can't turn our backs on money that we find. It's hard to comprehend some of them Republicans when Tommy did the deal and they didn't seem to mind. You got to love the old nighter. They said, all righter, here come the whole chunk and the pot of water me. You never turn down money when it's right there for the takin'. I'm bringin' home the bacon as anyone can see.

And when he finished speaking, he gathered up his winnings, shook my hand and smiled as he headed toward the door and somewhere in the darkness. The governor, he was grinning while the argument continued on the capital floor. You got to love the old nighter. They said, all righter, here come the whole chunk and the pot of water me. You never turn down money when it's right there for the takin'. I'm bringin' home the bacon as anyone can see. That is Peter Lighty and Pat Logderman. The opinions and jokes of Peter Lighty are sole property of Peter Lighty and not necessarily those of here and now.

Before we leave you a program note, on Friday night, March 21st, the We The People Partnership will bring you a live debate between the two candidates running in next month's state supreme court election. Pat Rogansack and Ed Bruner will take citizen questions during an hour long forum on location in the supreme court chambers. There are a limited number of audience seats for the event. If you would like to register, call the 800 line registration number. That is 1-800-8717-76. That is all for tonight. We hope to see you back here next Friday night. I'm Frederica Freiberg until then. Have a great weekend. We hope to see you back here next Friday night.

We hope to see you back here next Friday night. Support of here and now is made possible in part by Strong Financial. Helping investors build and manage wealth for over 25 years. Strong Financial. Helping you build a strong portfolio. Support of here and now is made possible in part by Strong Financial. Helping you build a strong portfolio.

Support of here and now is made possible in part by Strong Financial. Helping you build a strong portfolio. Support of here and now is made possible in part by Strong Financial. Helping you build a strong portfolio. Helping you build a strong portfolio. Helping you build a strong portfolio. Helping you build a strong portfolio.