1- Would you vote in favor of it if you were a rep/senator or it was a referendum?
2- To what would you dedicate the government’s share of the profits?
I would, and I’d dedicate most of the government’s share to health care, with lesser amounts to education (including continuing ed), a much lesser amount to the arts, and a small fraction (but very sizable amount money wise) to the president’s discretionary purse, something akin to a 60%/30%/5%/1% split (with the remaining 4% tbd).
It’s meaningless to “dedicate” a share to a specific cause. If the lottery supplied money in one area it would simply free up funds to be used elsewhere. It’s not as if there would be more money than ever before to spend on healthcare, for instance. The same total pool of real tax receipts and borrowing pays the bills.
I would not because I think lotteries are a tax on the poor and a way to fund tax cuts for the more well off and shift the burden to the most vulnerable.
No. As above, lotteries take advantage of poor people and people who can’t count.
Lottery profits tend to just move money around (as Chief Pedant points out). I live in California. The government said that the lottery profits would go to education and things would be great! Then, of course, they simply didn’t fund education as much, depending on the lottery to make up the difference. Education in California has not improved one bit–rather the opposite. And I have to look at lottery billboards too.
Perhaps we could dedicate the profits to math education…
By the way, 80% or so of States already have a State Lottery or participation in a multi-state lottery (Alabama being one of the exceptions). A “national” lottery would not be much different from Powerball or Mega Millions or Hot Lotto. More pie to the Federal Government, I suppose, where the money could be used much more efficiently and effectively than the states use it. :dubious:
Low income may make the lottery seem more appealing, but only to someone who is gullible enough to believe that playing the lottery is worth the price.
So why make it easier to part a gullible person and money? You know that money you’re taking out of the poor persons pocket will need to be put back in through other means plus interest.
You know that working poor family that every week paycheck the mom or dad take the money and blow it gambling? That’s not all myth. Those not participating end up suffering. You think it was coincidence that they placed casinos near Detroit? It wasn’t to lure in out of area people to increase the income, it was to take more money from those least able to afford it, despicable.
First of all, the whole reason"gullible" has been removed from the dictionary is precisely because it is an insensitive term toward the poor, so let’s not use it. Let’s use “inappropriately hopeful.”
Do you have any sort of evidence behind the notion that “they” put casinos near Detroit to take more money from those who could least afford it, or is that just a gratuitous pitch for the general conspiracy theory that “they” (the haves?) want to steal what little the have-nots do have?
If the decision of where to place Casinos in Michigan was anything like the decisions I’ve seen everywhere else, it was based on some sort of hope that good things would result from having an actual functioning business in a particular location. That the poor spend their money foolishly–cigarettes; liquor; fast food; lottos…–is a concern in some sort of broad societal parenting sense but it’s hardly a driving force for where to place a casino. If it were placed somewhere else there would be cries of abandoning yet another project that could have been placed in a poor area as part of urban renewal.
Still in every dictionary I have. And you’re right I have no proof, but I do have common sense. Detroit was a above national average poverty levels, they build casinos. Makes sense to me if you want to make money off those with money you build the casino’s in areas that are above the national income levels. Unless you know that the poor tend to gamble more of there money away that is.
It really doesn’t matter what your opinion is of the people who gamble inappropriately. We can both think they are fools, but being a fool (or even a damned fool) doesn’t mean they can suddenly live on air and inappropriate hopes.
So, all of you that say you would vote no because it is a tax on the poor, preys on the poor, takes advantage of the poor, etc. think that it is right(or appropriate, or fair) that you or anyone else should be able to tell someone, poor or not, what they can spend their money on. You have the right to tell someone that they have to buy what you want them to buy. You can tell them how to live their lives. How does that work? I really want to know, if I could tell people what they can spend their money on it really isn’t too far away from me being able to really control them! World watch out, apparently I have the right to have minions!