When the North Carolina Education Lottery was approved in the NC General Assembly in 2005 by a razor thin margin, I covered the story and was told extensively by Republican detractors that the money generated for schools would get raided whenever budgets became tight.
They were right. With the state facing its first significant budget deficit since the lottery was established, a chunk of lottery profits has been utilized to plug the multi-billion dollar hole in the general fund. The move attracted the kind of angry protest you’d expect from those counting on education funds. But one legislator representing part of Surry County has taken a more tongue in cheek route in his response.
Darrell McCormick, a Republican whose district represents the eastern third of the county, is one of four primary sponsors of a bill filed last week to strip the word “education” out of the “North Carolina Education Lottery’s” title. Sarah Stevens, Surry’s other representative in the House, is a co-sponsor.
It’s a form of protest at lottery backers reneging on their pledge to keep those profits for schools, a major selling point in getting the lottery enacted. It’s unlikely this bill gets through to a vote in a Democrat controlled legislature, but it might tighten pressure on keeping all lottery revenues solely in the hands of schools.
Absolutely shocking.
[...] Technical Community College campus in Stokes County. McCormick is among those behind the bill to change the name of the lottery and also wants to create a committee studying grandparents’ visitation [...]
The lottery “bait and switch” is only to be expected from a political nomenklatura that is willing to enact a “gambling education” project like the state lottery in the first place. Having trained large numbers of citizens to gamble at very poor odds, the state cultivates the public for involvement in privately arranged gambling opportunities with much smaller “house advantage”. This is why private gambling interests are happy to see a state lottery: they know because of the profligacy of the state sponsors, it will always be easy to beat the state’s gaming services in competing for the patronage of serious gamblers. And, they know that the state’s pathetic offering will generate a lot more serious gamblers.
Of COURSE the funds extracted by the “education” lottery from the foolish and the population of compulsive gamblers will be diverted into the political game player’s favorite projects! That’s how the game is played. And that is how it will continue to be played as long as voters are inattentive and gullible enough to allow it.