Reacting swiftly, Park Place Entertainment has announced it would postpone plans to build a new $200 million, 1,000-room tower at its Caesars Palace here, as well as a new $75 million, 3,000-car parking garage. According to company officials, neither project will move forward until the final tax plan is worked out, especially if it's in the casino industry's favor.

The proposed increases "destroy 25 years of good faith between the gaming industry and the State of New Jersey," Park Place president/CEO Wallace Barr said in a written statement. "It cuts off the lifeblood of investment capital that has been pouring into Atlantic City over the last quarter century.

"If this is what we can expect from our friends, I can't wait to see what our enemies have in store," Barr's statement continued. "This tax plan is a back-alley mugging."

Paul Rubeli, chairman and CEO of Aztar Corp., whose Tropicana subsidiary has a major expansion underway here, was equally irate. In fact, in a fourth quarter earnings conference call, he largely blamed McGreevey's budget message for the nearly $800 million in value Atlantic City casino stocks lost in the first few days after the governor's address.

"If I were governor and went home from work one day and my wife asked, 'what did you accomplish today?' I could say, 'I wiped out $500 million of value," Rubeli said during the conference call, referring to the first day's stock losses. "The governor wiped out $500 million in value just with a proposal. God help us if this proposal becomes reality."

Another key player here, Harrah's, meanwhile, indicated it would move forward with its own expansion plans, based largely on a gut feeling that the proposed increases won't stick. "There is some discussion and compromise to be had here, and for now we're not changing our capital spending in Atlantic City, the company's COO Timothy Wilmott in his own fourth quarter conference call."I think that by June, we'll see a different set of circumstances than what has been proposed by the governor."