Welfare vs The Lottery

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tyme

Administrator
How can a government legitimately run both a welfare program and a lottery? How can a state take primarily from the somewhat-wealthy and give to the poor while it simultaneously takes from the gullible and gives to a select few soon-to-be-rich lottery winners?

I know there's a difference in the participants in each program, since citizens can choose whether to buy a lottery ticket but cannot choose whether to pay welfare taxes. Still, should a government be able to run two programs with such conflicting philosophies, particularly when one of them doesn't generate any revenue?
 
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Rich Lucibella

Staff
I have often said I'd love to back a class action suit against some State on the same grounds as the tobacco and firearms suits.

Think about it:
Joe Smith ruins his life in Las Vegas. Habitual Gambler. Can't stop himself. Gets his act together and moves to Florida. Rehabilitates and starts rebuilding his life. But the commercials and billboards finally get the best of him and he starts spending his paychecks on Lotto tix. Think it doesn't happen? Think again.

Get four such people together and you have the makings of a Class Action. I'd love to see any govermental agency have to utter the words, "Well it's his own fault. The Lottery isn't the problem; the individual is."

It'd be priceless, win or loose.
Rich
 
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Ben Swenson

New member
Me too, 444.

I think welfare programs are wrong, but I fail to see the connection between welfare and the lottery.

Never play the lottery myself (though I have to admit buying chances at winning guns from time to time), but I have no problem with them in general. Consider it one of the rare few taxes you can opt out of, and you'll never have a problem. I think it's wrong that state governments often have monopolies on lotteries, but I don't care if people want to spend their money on an insignificant chance of winning a bunch more.
 
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444

New member
Maybe it is because I live in Nevada, but I have no problem at all with games of chance.
Most of us have at least some discretionary income. Some choose to spend it on guns, others on boats or hotrod cars, some may choose to go out to dinner or a movie: others choose to spend it on gaming. They enjoy it and I see nothing wrong with it. Afterall, it is their money, who am I to decide how and where they should spend it ? Do some people get in trouble this way ? Sure they do. There are millions of others that don't. Welfare has nothing in common with the lottery at all unless I am missing something. The reasons have already been stated.
I actually know a guy that hit the Ohio Lotto. Someone wins almost every drawing. And, you can't win unless you play. The chances of winning the jackpot are slim. But they are better odds than you get if you don't buy a ticket. Personally, my gambling consists of spending four dollars a week on the kalifornia lotto. Odds are that I will never win any significant amount of money. Odds are I will lose money. But to me it is worth four bucks a week for the chance to win the whole thing.
 
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raz-0

New member
I personally think the lottery is one of the few honest things government does.

1) participating in it is purely voluntary

2) you can mathematically calculate with reasonable accuracy how much you might ever expect to get back from said contribution.

So it beats welfare on two points right there. I'll bet it wins out on a third point, that being that it probably has less adminsitrative overhead and operates more efficiently than welfare as well.

And getting back to the first point, who cares.. it's a lottery.. play or don't play.
 
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Tamara

Moderator Emeritus
I like the lottery. It's the first 100% voluntary tax we've had. We should raise all our money this way, without namby-pamby quibbling about "But it's for eeeducaaation!" (Apparently probability and statistics are no longer taught in our educational system...)

Mostly I like it because I don't pay the "Stupid Tax", as a friend calls it. ;)
 
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griz

New member
Even more than that question, I wonder how the state can run a lottery and at the same time outlaw gambling.

In Chicago last month they arrested a women who was running her own lottery. She sold tickets, used the states own drawing to assure randomness, and paid out a lot more than the state did.

Since the state runs a lottery, what moral grounds are there for charging her? Unfair competition?

In fairness, I heard this on the radio and don't know all the details. It could be she was taking her own risks could not have paid out if there was a big winner. My question is about the morality of the law, not this example.
 
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Tamara

Moderator Emeritus
Say, wouldn't this be neat:

If you wanted to support nat'l defense, you could buy tickets in the "Build A Carrier" lottery. If you wanted to help the poor, you could buy tickets in the "Boost the Dole" lottery. If you wanted to shut Willie Nelson the hell up, you could buy tickets in the "Subsidize a Farmer" lottery.

I'm liking this already... :D
 
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treeprof

New member
Hmm. I don't remember any gov't entity having moral qualms abt collecting $$$ from any possible source. And, lotteries do generate a ton of revenue. Here in Ga we've created a huge entitlement from lottery dollars: the HOPE "scholar"-ship for college students ("scholar" because any student who can't graduate from a Ga high school these days with the B average needed to qualify for the HOPE is dang lucky that breathing is a reflexive action). Not surprisingly, growth in entitlement outlays has surpassed the lottery revenue stream earmarked to support them.

Ga has another means for the stoopid to also give more moeny to the gov't: SPLOST (special purpose local option sales tax) ballot initiatives, a large number of which pass handily.

Re rich lottery winners, there are, I believe, a number of studies showing that most lottery winners are back where they started within 10 years or less. There are exceptions, of course, but spending $$ on the lottery and saving and investing are usually not positively correlated, and winners usually blow it all shortly. The money from gov't handouts and lottery payoffs tends to end up back in the hands of society's producers and achievers pretty quickly.
 
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Quartus

New member
It's 95% and 5 years. Not 10. A fool and his money are soon parted, which is why we have high taxes.



You might have to think about that last bit...
 
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fix

New member
SPLOST = Stupid People's Lousy Old Sales Tax

I am continually amazed that these things pass overwhelmingly at the ballot box. Volunteering to pay more taxes is not the way to send a message to government officials. I like the idea of using sales tax to fund government, but as a replacement for...not in addition to existing taxes. I support the fair tax plan (National Sales Tax), but my biggest fear is that we'll get it passed and then see a return to income tax in addition to the sales tax within 10 years.
 
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Standing Wolf

Member in memoriam
Still, should a government be able to run two programs with such conflicting philosophies, particularly when one of them doesn't generate any revenue?
Click to expand...

The function of government is to increase the size, wealth, and power of government.
 
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tyme

Administrator
A lottery takes from many people and gives to a few, consolidating wealth. Welfare takes from many and gives to (relatively) few, redistributing wealth. Shouldn't states be ideologically consistent?
 
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Tamara

Moderator Emeritus
Shouldn't states be ideologically consistent?
Click to expand...

That'd be something new. ;)

Gambling is illegal. State lotteries are legal.
Magazines over 10 rounds are dangerous tools for mass killings. We issue 15-rounders to Officer Friendly.
People need alternative transportation! Here, let us build you some more roads.
We'll put a sin tax on things we want to discourage. Like making money through investing in businesses in this state.
We need to give money for poor folks. So they can spend it on lottery tickets.

The beat goes on... ;)
 
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Jack T.

New member
Most of us have at least some discretionary income. Some choose to spend it on guns, others on boats or hotrod cars, some may choose to go out to dinner or a movie: others choose to spend it on gaming.
Click to expand...

Perhaps. . .but I don't know of many people who take their weekly/monthly check and go spend it on guns/cars/boats without taking into consideration their other obligations. . .
 
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