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7/17/2008
Wigderson: Repeal the lottery
Thank heaven for the self-check out at grocery stores. I’m strongly in favor of anything that can possibly reduce the reasons to interact with my fellow human beings while I’m on a grocery-buying mission. And because there is no clerk there to retrieve cigarettes from the service counter or help fill out an application for a savings card, those people who are naturally slow and annoying tend to become someone else’s problem.
You know the type: Too many items for the express lane, they don’t start writing their check until the last item has been rung up, their identification is buried in a mountain of receipts, they have something in their cart that requires a clerk older than 21, and they have lottery fever.
The last, I have not been able to escape completely. Quick stops at the local gas station for a gallon of milk or an extra copy of the Waukesha Freeman on Thursdays (a bargain at fifty cents) are inevitably made longer by the “mathematically challenged” scratching their lottery tickets in front of me. The temptation is to shatter their illusions in order to move the line more quickly. “Did you know you’re better off combing the Lake Michigan shoreline with a metal detector?”
Unfortunately I'm probably incapable of shattering the dream of easy money. After all, the spam e-mails from Nigeria keep finding suckers; why shouldn’t the Wisconsin lottery? Of course, what you always hear is simply, “You can’t win if you don’t play.” Yup. Brilliant.
Rod Stetzer in the Chippewa Herald found out that sometimes you can’t win even if you do play.
The lottery’s Web site lists 46 current scratch-off tickets, which the lottery also calls instant tickets. Of those, four games have all of their top prizes gobbled up. You can’t win the $250,000 top prize in Cash Blockbuster, or the $2,000 jackpot of Bacon and Eggs, the $25,000 top prize of Monopoly or the $50,000 offered by Poker Showdown. Those top prizes including three for Cash Blockbuster, four for Bacon and Eggs, three for Monopoly and two for Poker Showdown have been given out. Gone and done.
When the lottery was first proposed, it was promised as a cheap way for property tax relief for Wisconsinites. A recent state audit has revealed we’re not even getting that. Instead, Governor Doyle sucked up $208,000 of the “tax relief” for use in the general fund. So what was promoted as a property tax relief measure has now become a way to tax poor people to fund the government even more.
And remember, what property tax relief that does escape the gravity of Madison has to be shared with our friends from Illinois who own second homes in Wisconsin. That’s a regressive tax funded by a vice shamelessly promoted by our state government. In return we get the benefit of Indian Casinos (allowed because the state has a lottery) and their wonderful effect on the body politic of Wisconsin. We get the social ills of more gambling addicts feeding their problem at any convenience store with a subsidized game bearing the government stamp of approval. And now we have the state government breaking its own laws to get its hands on more gambling money.
We can win and we will win if we don’t play. We need to end the state lottery.
James Wigderson blogs regularly at Wigderson Library & Pub.
COMMENTS
When I was growing up, gambling was illegal in WI. When I returned to WI after an absence of 15 years, WI had a lottery, as well as casinos. It most certainly did NOT impress me. Some argue that at least the unemployed (who often suck up the most tax dollars in services that they don't pay for) can be made to "pay taxes" this way, but I'd rather see and end to ALL gambling.
But that'll never happen, especially as Doyle got so much money from certain casino groups. Which is why we now have casinos at the State Fair--which USED to be a family-friendly event.
emily matthews (Thu Jul 17 09:51:12 2008)
I really enjoyed this commentary on the Wisconsin Lottery Ripoff. As a County Board member in my county I once led the charge in opposing the establishment of this cancer in my community by authoring a resolution prohibiting a casino. I heard, on a daily basis, the greed of some of my fellow citizens manifested in their rationalizations; the "win-win" arguments by letter and phone call, and the "legislating morality" argument until I was about to upchuck.
I'm unrepentant - I'm glad I was an obstructionist! And this commentary by Jim Wigderson just encourages me more.
Next time, however, I have a feeling those of us who oppose this evil will have to fight the liberals and moonbats from the commune in Madison to keep the "free money" bunch at bay.
On Wisconsin!
Duke (Thu Jul 17 10:07:48 2008)
Having worked at a grocery store for a period of time, I consider myself an expert on, shall we say, the nuances of grocery patrons. (Ok, so it was only three months as a shift manager at the Northland Festival...)
I also whole-heartedly support self-check or just self-X things in general. That is unless its at Wally World and the person(s) in front of you are slower than the machine... There is something to not being hassled by a smarmy teenager (or 40 year old) behind the counter that is frustrated with their existence enough to take it out on you.
But I digress--the lottery is a burden on our society and probably should be repealed, but good luck with that. Have you seen the folks that buy tickets? You can't separate them from their scratch-off any easier than the cigarette in their mouth. (Ok, I'm sterotyping, but stay with me here.)
Of course then instead of having a source of revenue (well...kind of) we'd have to pay for the "scratch-heads" to go to lottery rehab. Six of one....
Adam Delikowski (Thu Jul 17 10:43:40 2008)
Amen!
Former state representative Sue Vergeront left the Assembly and became an ordained Presbyterian minister with a parish in Columbus. She had an interview with the Portage Daily Register some time back and was asked if she had any regrets.
She said she regretted voting in favor of the state lottery.
Adam Young (Thu Jul 17 15:14:59 2008)
Hey, you're not alone. The Tomah Journal wants to repeal the lottery, too, although it's from a different ideological perspective.
Northern Pike (Fri Jul 18 14:54:16 2008)
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