"Lotteries: America's $70 billion shame"

They have a choice. Doesn't get more fair than that.

 

I'm not bitter at all.

 

So it's a coincidence that the poor and uneducated exercise that choice to purchase lottery tickets at a far greater rate than the wealthy and educated?

 

Do you think that $230 a year is going to go to a good cause if the lottery ends tomorrow?

 

Who's more likely to spend five dollars on the 1-in-a-billion chance to win $100 million?

Someone who lives comfortably on a $150K/year salary?

Or, someone without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of?

 

Like I said, maybe state governments should run payday advance stores, too. If poor people are going to spend money in irresponsible ways, the government might as well take advantage of them to finance the college educations of the middle-class and wealthy.

 

And who could really use that $5 to buy something they actually need?

 

Like what? Maybe they look at their situation and decide to forgo one gallon of milk for the however-small chance that they'll never have to worry about money again. That's a big draw, and a highly likely choice for someone who worries about money every second of every day.

 

I've been clear on this for a long time.

It -- along with cigaret taxes/prices -- are a tax on the poor, pure and simple.

Politicians, terrified of raising taxes, or cutting spending, approve lotteries, casino gambling, video poker, and "sin taxes". They raise money, but hurt those they claim to want to help.

The lottery should be abolished. It's not only a regressive tax, it's a bastion of patronage everywhere it exists.

And, if cigarets are so bad -- and they are -- then we should make them illegal too, instead of selling them to the poor, and attaching outrageous taxes to them.

 

A dollar and a dream: