Lottery dilutes middle-class habits
Two things up front about the Georgia Lottery.
One is that it exists as a tax on those believed to pay no taxes. It’s a consumption tax levied on the unsophisticated. It’s the rent they pay for government.
The second observation about the Georgia Lottery is that its beneficiaries are the middle class, the families that once socked away a few dollars each week to pay for the college expenses of newborn babies.
It was one generation’s investment in the next.
I’ve never been a fan for two reasons.
One is that it tempts the poor to engage in behaviors that are harmful to their families.
The second is that it tempts the middle class to engage in behaviors that are harmful to their families.
With the poor, the temptation is to take money they can’t afford to lose and put it in an investment with odds against them of 175 million to one.
A woman without a job for six months and, as the AJC’s Bill Torpy reported last month, with “a car note and mortgage nipping at her heels,” stops at an Atlanta convenience store to buy $10 Extreme Green scratch-offs, spending about $100 a week.
People are entitled to spend their money any way they see fit, and desperate people see enough oversized checks with big numbers in lottery-winner photo ops to convince them that dire circumstances warrant such Hail Mary “investments.”
And yet, while we can gin up our rawest and most virulent indignation at “predatory lenders” who put the working poor in mortgages that they can’t afford, we think nothing ill of a state-owned enterprise that does something worse.
And why? Because we are beneficiaries of the loot taken from the poor. The big bonuses are not going to securities traders, but to the middle class in the form of HOPE stipends.
The lottery has changed, for the worse, the habits of the middle class, too. Before it was created in 1993, the middle class knew that individual family sacrifice was necessary to fund the burden that college represented. Immediate pleasures — a meal out, a newer car — were put off to set aside money for a distant expense.
In taking money from Mom and Dad, there were faces and known sacrifices connected to the tuition money.
Then came the Georgia Lottery.
The Athens Banner-Herald’s Lee Shearer quizzed students at the University of Georgia for a weekend story noting that by 2011, gambling revenues may be inadequate to fund all HOPE expenses.
They could, egads, be forced to turn to their own resources — a part-time job or family savings — to pay part or all of the $300 book allowance and, if things get worse, they could lose the money that goes to cover mandatory fees.
Since 1999-2000, the cost of the program has grown from $207 million to $500 million.
When asked how much HOPE paid for their education, students had no clue. The amount is not shown on their tab.
It is an entitlement, like welfare or Medicaid, without connection between those who sacrifice and those who benefit.
The Georgia Lottery Corp. board meets Thursday. It is under pressure to permit casino gambling in Underground Atlanta so that the middle class will not be forced to make choices between a vacation and their offspring’s college expenses.
The poor and the addicted are getting tapped out on the old scratch-offs and Mega Millions. Underground operators are counting on the middle class to ride to their rescue.
The board doesn’t have Underground on their agenda. But they should now, this week, call the question: Will Georgia open its doors to casino gambling?
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138 comments Add your comment
Really?
April 28th, 2009
9:30 am
I’m sick of all this “we must protect them from themselves” attitude. If someone CHOOSES to buy lottery tickets rather than pay their car note, that’s their choice. They are adults free to succeed or fail. And “predatory lenders”? There is no such thing. EVERY salesperson is trying to get as much of your money into their pocket as they can. Besides, if you can’t be bothered to pre-read and understand your mortgate contract then you deserve what you get. Predatory my big fat @ss.
JIm's a Cherry Picker
April 28th, 2009
9:36 am
Et Tu, Jimbo? A vote for the Nanny State?
Going soft in your pre retirement days.
Big Bucks GOP
April 28th, 2009
9:42 am
A trustee overseeing the liquidation of Wall Street swindler Bernard L.
Madoff’s assets has announced a winning bid of potentially more than
$25 million for the securities-trading operation he ran.
Big Bucks GOP
April 28th, 2009
9:43 am
Shares of Bank of America and Citigroup fell in European trading
Tuesday, as investors reacted to a report in The Wall Street Journal
that United States regulators have told the banks that they may need to
raise more capital following the government’s stress tests.
Big Bucks GOP
April 28th, 2009
9:45 am
With municipal bond investigations spreading to Europe from the United
States, Italian authorities have seized about $300 million in assets of
four global banks — JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Depfa –
whose officials have been accused of fraud,
Big Bucks GOP
April 28th, 2009
9:48 am
The Securities and Exchange Commission has about 150 ongoing hedge fund
investigations, including inquiries into alleged Ponzi schemes and
misappropriations, S.E.C. chief Mary Schapiro said.
Big Bucks GOP
April 28th, 2009
9:50 am
The Securities and Exchange Commission has temporarily frozen assets
controlled by Danny Pang, a money manager in Newport Beach, Calif., who
the agency contends defrauded investors out of hundreds of millions of
dollars in a scheme that began in 2003.
Northern Songs Ltd
April 28th, 2009
9:53 am
No one is forcing anyone to buy anything. There is a big differnece between predatory lending, and a scratch off ticket or a mega-million quik pick.
Jefferson
April 28th, 2009
9:53 am
It is not a REAL casino if they don’t have craps tables, those bogus indian bingo psodo girly slot machine dives are weak.
Seven of Nine
April 28th, 2009
10:04 am
Jim is a nanny stater on his own issues – the lottery, sex, paving the entire state. Notice many, if not most of his regulars, have already retired.
Aquagirl
April 28th, 2009
10:06 am
A State monopoly in any business is bad. State-monopolized gambling is no different. The HOPE “scholarship” system has also created middle-class entitlement to inflated grades. Exploiting stupid people excites right-wing jerks so much they fail to see how it’s biting them in the a%$.
Wow, Jim, I think your impending job change is doing you some good. Doesn’t it feel great to be free of expectations? You can exercise common sense instead of barfing out rhetoric. Bravo.
Mac
April 28th, 2009
10:06 am
I invest in a MegaMillions quick pick about twice a month. I’d love to be reaping the benefits of the HOPE, but alas, my daugther decided to spend her first two years of high school goofing off.
Redneck Convert
April 28th, 2009
10:08 am
Well, if you got to have colledge, and I say you don’t, you might as well get Those People to pay for it. The decent, hardworking taxpayers get a little break on the taxes they might have to pay without the lottery and the lazy bums that sponge off of our taxes fork over the bucks to send a good redneck boy to colledge. It’s the best thing old Zell ever done.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t beleive much in colledge. Too many colledges take a good Right-thinking redneck boy and turn him into a raging librul. But once in a while it don’t take. So you get colledge-educated rednecks like old Sonny that knows the answer to problems is prayer and can’t be talked into the librul way of thinking by a bunch of colledge perfessers.
So I agree with Wooten people need to save for what they want to buy. But that don’t mean we can’t put more of the cost of what we need on the people that don’t put out nothing in the first place. If they got the money to play the lottery they got the money to pay for peoples colledge.
That’s my opinion and it’s very true. Have a good day everybody.
GayGrayGeek
April 28th, 2009
10:08 am
Seven of Nine – Jim wants Big Gubmint out of HIS life, but wants it firmly ensconced in YOUR life.
And yeah, it’s quite obvious that Jim’s biggest sycophants have disappeared…
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
10:09 am
Let’s have some sand in the gears of this blog, shall we? How about, some self-righteous poacher who daily posts midmorning business reports to his liking?
Oh, sorry, I forgot. We already are inflicted with that.
Well then, how about a long interruptive string of sports stories, or a force-fed treatment of celebrity journalism every morning at about ten o’clock? Automotive stories, one after the other, perhaps? How about homemaking or consumer reporting or trendsetting?
Choose your preferred daily interruption? Not.
Instead, you get the anti-WSJ whether you like it or not.
The AJC is determined to save the souls of every one of us who’ve killed our subscriptions as a result of its having made, some time ago, an editorial choice to side with a failed and increasingly unpopular ideology, Smartassdom, libstyle.
RetLTC
April 28th, 2009
10:11 am
Is it not contradictory when gambling is looked upon to replace a real economy in a state that still frowns on buying a six pack on Sunday?
Matilda
April 28th, 2009
10:15 am
Nanny state indeed. Why is Mr. Wooten’s nose always in other people’s business? Where are the “conservative” values of individualism and non-interference? Is Mr. Wooten trying to send a child to college right now, and can’t because the child’s grades don’t merit Hope money? Did Mr. Wooten suddenly become concerned about the state of education in Georgia, and now wants to help bring the education level of our populace UP? Or is it his fervent hope that the average level of Georgia citizens’ education DROP EVEN FURTHER, for some reason he is about to share with us?
JTL
April 28th, 2009
10:27 am
Good point RetLTC. You would think the same crowd that fights tooth and nail over six packs on Sunday would be howling long and loud over Casino style gambling.
neo-Carlinist
April 28th, 2009
10:28 am
once again, I am confused. while I agree the State has no business in the gambling business (and probably LESS business in the education business); I fail to see how any state-sponsored gaming enterprise is any different than the de-regulation of the derivities market, which as we all now know, turned Wall Street into a de facto casino for a handful of gamblers (who were playing with house money). in fact, I would argue that with the GA lottery, at least you know the odds (150 million to 1) and YOU choose to play or not to play. those of us who judiciously invested in our homes or the stock market have been asked to pay the tabs of a handful of reckless, self-serving gamblers who placed bets with OUR money.
RetLTC
April 28th, 2009
10:29 am
Maybe we should strike while the iron is hot and go for the trifecta. Casino style gambling in Underground, legalized prostitution, and beer on Sunday. I’m deluding myself aren’t I. The beer on Sunday would be a deal killer.
Diogenes
April 28th, 2009
10:30 am
Good morning, Jim
You’re becoming quite the moralist lately, fulminating against unwed mothers, gambling, and people acting like people. The conservatives have all but destroyed the middle class, yet you presume that there is still a “middle class morality,” like the one you think might have existed in the 40s and 50s. More and more, you want to get government involved in setting moral standards, but you don’t want government to do the job that it is supposed to be doing. It’s an interesting contradiction in your thinking, but I suspect that your desire to tell everyone else how to live their lives is as much a function of your political entanglements as your personal moral standards. The HOPE scholarship program is not equivalent to “welfare and medicaid,” which are funded by taxes. If we do away with the HOPE program, how would we educate the people we need for our future at a time when college costs are rising precipitiously and the Governor’s Scholarship program has been killed? The answer is easy, although conservatives get so tangled in their ideology that they can never see the obvious: raise taxes, especially on businesses and the rich and pay for scholarships out of tax monies, just as we do welfare and Medicaid. Maybe we would then have a “middle class” again, even though I don’t think you really want one. I think you and the rest of the conservatives are very happy with a two class society: the very rich and the uneducated very poor.
RC Cola and a Moon Pie
April 28th, 2009
10:35 am
I’ve got 10 middle class dollars that will be dropping into a convenience store cash register tonight to win my $181MegaLarge… i’m a right-leaner, and i’ll spend my money on whatever my wife allows me to…
Dusty
April 28th, 2009
10:35 am
Dear Jim Wooten,
I understand quite well what you are saying. You yearn for the days when citizens thought they were to pay their own way in all things. “Relief” was a disgrace. Independence was treasured.
Now relief is supposed to come from government or from lucky winning of wealth. Personal saving is seen as a credit card debt you can pay eventually.
Perhaps Zell Miller saw the changes and decided that the only hope was to educate children and pay for it any way possible. The Lottery was the best possibility. He did not see the possibilites of changes in rules of receiving.
Teachers began to raise grades to get students enrolled. Parents with funds realized that they did not have to pay if their child was enrolled in Hope. Students entered college who would never have been accepted with their usual grade average. Many did not stay to finish their education even with all the help that could be extended to them. Some students claimed that “teaching” was not good .(See article by recent UGA grad in Sunday’s paper.)
Now casino gambling is suggested for ADDITIONAL FUNDS . For education!! Oh yes. And for the people who run the casinos and the funds. As has been said here, let the people “throw their money away”. Let fools be fools if they wish it that way. Throw temptation in front of them and say “go for it”.
I’m against that. But I do wish for good education for those who yearn for it, who will work for it, and who show some ability to gain it. Otherwise, we might just stand at the high school door and hand out money to Seniors. But that is just about what we are doing now and to hell with independence.
Copyleft
April 28th, 2009
10:36 am
A minor point, but deserving of emphasis:
“Those believed to pay no taxes.”
By whom? The notion that the poor “don’t pay taxes” is exclusively found among the propagandists of the extreme right and their brainless followers.
Jake
April 28th, 2009
10:38 am
The HOPE has done wonders for UGA and a little exposure to college for those grade-inflated APS kids is also a good thing. I like the lottery terminals in Underground idea, get a little out-of-state money into the pot.
booger
April 28th, 2009
10:40 am
I was at a convience store a few weeks back when a shabbily dressed woman with two children in front of me handed the clerk $12. She wanted 10 scratch off tickets and $2 worth of gas.
Yet I still think we should not do away with the lottery. These are the same people who live day to day, and they would just throw the money away on something else.
Yep
April 28th, 2009
10:45 am
I personally think that the Hope program has dropped the value of a college degree by flooding the market with unqualified, highly entitled kids who were given their grades out of high school so that they would qualify for free school later. I paid for my own education before the hope and I see a definate change in the quality of graduates after the Hope. DOWN! The business world now simply asks for an advanced degree make sure that the new crop of candidates can walk and chew gum at the same time. Bottom line here, where there is no self sacrifice, there is no dscipline!
Gail
April 28th, 2009
10:49 am
Jim,
You are wrong that at UGA the Hope Scholarship is not shown on their tab. It is. I am looking at a statement from this past August, and it says “Hope Scholarship 08-09 payment.” The students the Athens-Banner Herald asked just probably never go look at the details online. If they aren’t living on campus and don’t use the meal plan, the only expenses on their account are tuition and fees. They get an e-mail that shows they have an amount due. Then either they or their parents pay it and don’t look at the account statement. I can send you a copy of what shows on their account if you would like.
Shawny
April 28th, 2009
10:53 am
It is true that the poor, uneducated, and irresponsible pay this voluntary tax more than others. In general, it is those that don’t have it to spend that end up spending it anyway. It is because of their lack of fiscal discipline to begin with that has caused their plight, and continued fiscal irresponsibility that caused them to continue to waste money on the lottery. That point is well taken, but not necessarily a reason to do away with the lottery. It is just an unfortunate result of having a lottery.
On the other hand, while the lottery has made tuition an option where there was no option before, or made college more affordable and less of a burden for parents whose kids were going to go anyway, it has driven up attendance and driven up costs in general. It has made it more expensive for <3.0 students that don’t qualify for HOPE to attend, and this is the biggest travesty of it.
jm
April 28th, 2009
10:55 am
Of course Mr. Wooten left out the part about state universities increasing their tuitions, knowing that the costs were being passed on to Hope and out of state students.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
11:01 am
@Shawny,
Your points are almost subtle and for the most part I agree with you.
Jake
April 28th, 2009
11:04 am
Yep – Lots of those unqualified kids don’t get a degree, they flunk out after a year or two. In part , that’s because the watered-down programs at most high schools don’t adequately prepare kids for college level work. But that’s also a result of Bush’s NCLB, which forces schools to devote a lot of resources to the less capable students.
Jake
April 28th, 2009
11:07 am
Shawny – Approximately 99.7% of the kids that can’t make a 3.0 in Georgia high schools don’t belong in college anyway, they belong in beautician school.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
11:18 am
@Jake, you’re a nasty fellow, because that’s so true and, more importantly, because you say it.
But yet how confident are you that the ones who “belong in college” are the ones who indeed belong there? Do you reverence the College Board, then, and the accuracy of its tests?
How many of the ones rejected do you suppose might perform better than, and persist longer than, the ascendant ones designated by Princeton as mostly likely to ascend and prosper? If you’re the kind of liberal you say you are, then I’ve got to wonder: How comfortable are you with money-making concerns deciding which young individuals are fit to run the State’s affairs?
wylie
April 28th, 2009
11:22 am
This is the first article of yours that I agree with totally and fully. Zell Miller’s lottery is one of the worst things the Legislature ever produced. It is simply an exorbitant tax levied on the poor class so the upper classes will have free state money for their children’s education. I have opposed it from the very beginning.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
11:25 am
wylie,
You presume. You’re presumtous. Worse than that, you’re morally presumptuous.
Yet, at the same time, I’m sure you know better than the rest.
John
April 28th, 2009
11:39 am
Great perspective Jim. I remeber when the “Bible Belt” vowed never to succomb to the evil wiles of a lottery. Georgia has not only embraced it, but now they want to become more Vegas like with the placement of slot machines downtown. What a scam! I still do not understand why one can get their gambling vice on anytime, but you can’t buy a bottle of wine on Sunday. These types of issues contoniue to expose GA and its leaders as the ultimate hippocrites.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
11:48 am
@John,
In theology the term “ultimate hypocrites” is oxymoronic.
everydayjane
April 28th, 2009
11:55 am
Dementia has officially set in…If the lottery existed only because “poor” people played it, there would be no lottery.
Repooplican
April 28th, 2009
11:58 am
So we cheered the raising of the cigarette tax because that protected the “poor” from themselves and their dirty habits. Now we need to protect the “poor” from themselves again because they are habitial gamblers who are paying for our children’s education. Hmmmm……….it makes me think of my mother in law, a retired doctor, who spends over a $100 a week on tickets. I guess I need to step in a make sure she’s aware that she has a “problem” and help pull her out of “poverty”.
Jackie
April 28th, 2009
12:06 pm
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) is reportedly switching from the Repubs to the Dems in the Senate.
This gives the Dems 59 Senators and Al Franken (D-MN) will give the Dems 60 Senators, a veto proof majority.
Is the GOP and the conservatives coming unglued?
Jackie
April 28th, 2009
12:17 pm
Correction: Are the GOP and the conservatives coming unglued?
One Voice
April 28th, 2009
12:26 pm
Arlen Specter is now a Democrat: http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Specters_statement.html
I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing for the Dems because a more liberal Democrat would probably have been elected there next year. Now Specter will probably hold his seat with the help of independents and an overwhelming majority of Democrats. Hmmm…
Allen
April 28th, 2009
12:28 pm
The Nanny state argument is a bit much…the lottery was created to be a nanny for families that should pay for their own education. Why is it a function of government to decide who should or how one should pay for college?
Why not sell crack to pay for our kid’s college? It’s a bit extreme, but illustrates the point. Exploiting greed or more so, stupidity, regardless of the target isn’t exactly a just way of securing benefits for yourself, lawful or not.
The lottery is always defending as “for the children.” It isn’t, it is for the parents, absolving parents from their duty to provide for their children. Does it get more Nanny than that?
Kudos Jim.
Shawny
April 28th, 2009
12:37 pm
Specter switching is a good thing. If he gets reelected, he can’t be as bad as more liberal democrat that might otherwise have that seat. He is pretty middle of the road. If he doesn’t get reelected, then we get a senator that will (presumably) be more conservative. That is what we call a win-win scenario.
I Report, You Bedwet
April 28th, 2009
12:39 pm
“The notion that the poor “don’t pay taxes” is exclusively found among the propagandists of the extreme right and their brainless followers”
Copywrong – a 5th grader can look up on the IRS website who pays what in federal income taxes. Now, if you want to talk about the poor paying taxes, they DO do it on the local level: beer, cigarettes, and the real tax on the poor, the lottery. Don’t let the facts cloud your pretty rose colored glasses, you mindless hysteric liberal.
Arlen Sphincter belonged to the Democrats long ago. Any other pushover want to go join him? Hatch? You Dimwitcrats have have them all. Let’s REALLY drain the swamp of useless so-called Republicans and get real the real deal back in there. We’ve had it up to here with these Dem @ss-kissing Rinos. Time and time and TIME AGAIN it is proven that Republicans bending over for Dimocrats has done ZERO for themselves or the Republican party in general. Drain the swamp alright – drain the swamp of useless Republicans.
By the way, now that the Democrats control EVERYTHING, why are the liberals still angry? Why are they becoming even MORE shrill? MORE hate-filled towards Conservatives and Republicans? Does anyone have a logical explanation for this?
In the mean time, let’s just sit back and watch this arrogant, incompetent White House Administration act the fool. Gibbs can’t even answer a question without fumblilng “uh, errr, uh, bbbbut, uuuhhhmmmmm…” and when Obama’s teleprompter jacks up, it’s hilarious: “move it forward please, I’ve already intruduced these people.” LMAO.
And the irony of the week is the White House telling AF1 to go fly around the WTC area for a photo up, scaring the HELL out of everyone. This administration is all about the image. The irony? This is the same administration up in arms and releasing sensitive CIA intelligence on how we interrogate terrorists. The White House did a DAMN good job of terrorizing New Yorkers yesterday. What morons.
Finally, the pinwheel spinning libDims are upset that Fox News is not going to air The Teleprompter Speech on his first 100 days. The liberal media and their mindless minions are all mad at Fox now. WHO CARES? These people HATE Fox News anyway. To hell with what they think. And for irony #2, guess what FoxNews is going to air in the Teleprompter Speech?
“The network will instead carry its regularly scheduled episode “Lie to Me,” according to its Web site. The show is among the network’s most popular and draws an average of 13 million viewers a week. That compares to the relatively paltry 4.2 million who watched the president’s last prime-time press conference on Fox. In all, close to 40 million watched that event on one of the eight networks that carried it.”
PRICELESS.
KISS system
April 28th, 2009
12:40 pm
Jackie-I think Spector saw the writing on the wall.There is speculation within the PA republican party that he was not going to be the party’s choice this coming election. Changing sides he knew was his only chance of continuing his political career. So much for sticking with principles. I for one and happy to see him go.
Jake
April 28th, 2009
1:01 pm
Allen, Jim et al – Let’s create responsible citizens by having their parents pay for their education instead of the government sponsored lottery? That isn’t exactly my definition of being self-reliant. Twenty-five years ago I worked my way through UGA. Next Fall my daughter will start there financed with a combination of Zell’s HOPE, Obama’s Pell grant increases and a little help from Dad. Does that mean our society or my daughter’s character is somehow diminshed? I don’t think so.
Copyleft
April 28th, 2009
1:04 pm
Bedwetter: As usual when you get all your info from right-wing sites, you’re wrong.
Fox News IS broadcasting the President’s speech; the Fox NETWORK AFFILIATE is not.
Geez, have you EVER been right? I mean, about anything?
Tallulah
April 28th, 2009
1:08 pm
Everydayjane put it very well. I keep hearing how the poor are spending all their money on the lottery. Other than anecdotal, where’s the evidence the lottery is financed by the poor?
Peter
April 28th, 2009
1:14 pm
Jim Doesn’t want Georgian’s education…..Republican’s don’t want Georgian’s educated……..
1500 scholarships lost to the best Georgia Students tell the tale !
Dumb is a………”Republican Family Value “….
david wayne osedach
April 28th, 2009
1:16 pm
Surprisingly enough lottery sales are down during this worsening recesssion.
Jackie
April 28th, 2009
1:29 pm
@KISS
Wonder how many other Repubs have given consideration to changing?
Now that they KNOW they are in the minority, what outrageous statements will they put out to show they are doing “what is best” for all of us?
Copyleft
April 28th, 2009
1:34 pm
By the way… Remember all those comments about how the Republican Party is “irrelevant?”
Well, now it’s official. Yee-haaa!
sd
April 28th, 2009
1:42 pm
Jim, I graduated Highschool in the first class that was offered the HOPE Scholarship. Without it, I may not have been able to go to college. Certainly not right out of high school. I would have probably had to have gone to work at the tire plant in town. The one that just closed down. I probably would have still been there.
Now, you’re saying, “so what”, thats your problem.
But the thing is, that because I went to college, I have made a lot more money than I would have had I gone to work at the tire plant. So much more, that I have paid tons more in taxes than I ever would have otherwise. In other words, the “entitlement” program that funded my college turned out to be a fine investment for the state of Georgia.
Ga Values
April 28th, 2009
1:49 pm
I agree with Jim on some of this but I’d be happy if the Hope was means tested. Our working farm is in the middle of Burke county and there is a small country store close that we stop by to get a cold 1 most nights. The decendents of my family’s slaves are at this store buying lottery tickets and I know for a fact most are on welfare. In this case we are simply taking our welfare payments with a high transfer cost & giving middle class scolarships. We have 3 childeren both the sons went to UVA on scolarship but our daughter went to UGA on Hope & the Honors Program. We had saved the money to send all our childeren to school but it payed for our sons’ law degrees and our daughter’s 2 year European vacation. Our childeren think they earned their way but in reality they inherated their grandparents intellecence. The student population of UGA is made up mostly of the graduates of the better public schools around Atlanta. A much better use of this money would be to invest it in our rural schools but it would probably just end up as garbage in garbage out.
Chris
April 28th, 2009
1:53 pm
The new Washington Post/ABC news poll has all sorts of intriguing numbers in it but when you are looking for clues as to where the two parties stand politically there is only one number to remember: 21.
That’s the percent of people in the Post/ABC survey who identified themselves as Republicans, down from 25 percent in a late March poll and at the lowest ebb in this poll since the fall of 1983(!).
In that same poll, 35 percent self-identified as Democrats and 38 percent called them Independents.
These numbers come on the heels of Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid, declaring the Republican party a “shrinking entity” last week — citing the decline of GOP numbers in the west, northeast and mountain west as evidence.
And they show a somewhat significant decline from even last November’s election when exit polls showed 32 percent of voters identifying as Republican as compared to 39 percent for Democrats and 29 percent for independents and others. (A caveat: voters tend to see things through a more partisan lens after having just voted in a presidential election than they do in an April poll.)
The Post poll numbers show the challenge for Republicans in stark terms.
The number of people who see themselves as GOPers is on the decline even as those who remain within the party grow more and more conservative.
That means that the loyal base of the party has an even larger voice in terms of the direction it heads even as more and more empirical evidence piles up that the elevation of voices like former vice president Dick Cheney does little to win over wavering Republicans or recruit Independents back to the GOP cause.
Ahmed
April 28th, 2009
1:54 pm
Why you are not liking me making my lottery dollars? The lottery attracts customers to my store to buy tall boys, cigerettes, blunt wrappers! They pay me for all this and them I send the money back to the homeland. Its funny how you Americans tax the poor with lottery that also pays for my interest free small business minority loan. This very good system!
SaveOurRepublic
April 28th, 2009
2:05 pm
I like the old adage regarding lotteries…”a tax on the stupid”. LOL! I’ve never played Lotto & never will, BUT since the Lotto’s already “in play”, I say “to each, their own”. As a standard policy, I’m against the “nanny state” & government empowerment.
Californication
April 28th, 2009
2:06 pm
Boy is that the dumbest statement ever, “One is that it exists as a tax on those believed to pay no taxes. It’s a consumption tax levied on the unsophisticated. It’s the rent they pay for government.” If you don’t play the lottery then you don’t pay taxes, only a liberal could justify such a statement. But then again, you might be right, people are too stupid to handle money, just let the government handle all the money because they do such a good job at it….
deegee
April 28th, 2009
2:07 pm
I guess that in Jim’s world it would be better for a college graduate to finish school with a $60K debt than to have taken a HOPE scholarship. I guess in Jim’s world it would be better for Georgians to burn their gasoline traveling to Tennessee and Florida to play the lottery rather than stopping at a convenience store on their way home. I guess that in Jim’s world it’s better to show up at a teabag party carrying a Fair Tax sign than it is to play the lottery.
And BTW, while we are talking about the dilution of some middle class habits, I lost $75K in my 401K last year because no one had the political will to stop the greed that permeated the financial industry.
Larry
April 28th, 2009
2:09 pm
Why is it everyone is ignoring the elephant in the living room? Why is it that the cost of college education is so damned high? The colleges have outstripped inflation every year for the last FORTY years! They are also showing diminishing returns on “education” for all those increased costs. We are paying more and more for less and less. This is an absurd situation which is far more frightening and dangerous to society than the fact that the “poor” are being fleeced by state owned snake oil salesmen.
Peter
April 28th, 2009
2:15 pm
Hey Jim…….New Topic……New Head lines…..
“Two WARS, and Near Depression dilutes middle-class habits”
EVIL REPUBLICANS TIME IS UP
April 28th, 2009
2:40 pm
SINKING SHIP IS THE GOP!
ARLEN SPECTOR LEFT THE DEAD GOP AND WENT INDEPENDENT!
Allen
April 28th, 2009
2:55 pm
Jake,
All I’m saying is that an individual or family’s desire for higher education should be achieved by their own means rather than by the bad economic decisions of others. When you consider the impact of the lottery on those who fund it and those who benefit from it, it is not even close to even. It is not a just system, whether you approve of the injustice or not is your call.
David
April 28th, 2009
3:00 pm
Jim’s argument was used by many before the lottery was approved. It’s not the government’s responsibility to protect us from how we spend our money. What is the difference between buying lottery tickets and a $2,000 big-screen tv with a loaded cable or satellite package? We are better served if we protect ourselves from government spending, not consumer spending. The only anti-lottery argument that I think has merits is whether or not the lottery or gambling in any form is a function of government.
Sandy
April 28th, 2009
3:01 pm
The lottery is the ultimate Zell tax scam. It has inflated college costs,increased litter,increased gambling addicts, contributed to poor quality TV ads,overpays its executives,and provides upper class welfare.Why don’t you reqeust the legislature ask for a performance audit so we know where the money goes.
RetLTC
April 28th, 2009
3:02 pm
Chris, your 1:53 is spot on. But the 21% that remains will continue to deny the obvious. Angry, scared, white guys are about all that is left of the GOP. To hear them continue to proclaim that most Americans agree with their agenda of fear, nativist/ethnocentric, politics of exclusion is laughable and in fact, pitiful. In spite of the demographics of recent elections they still hang on to the myths that have buried them. A prime example are the supremacist types that continue to proclaim that “most” Americans agree with them on immigration reform, when in 20 of 22 races that pitted a comprehensive immigration reform candidate against a rabid anti-reformer, the advocate of comprehensive reform won. This is just one example of the head in the sand denial that has killed the GOP.
ATL
April 28th, 2009
3:45 pm
Quite frankly, with the way the market has been, all that money parents are socking away in 529s is basically gone. So the lottery better be there for my kid’s college education in 18-20 years.
Malcolm
April 28th, 2009
3:50 pm
Terence Moore –
How is King Obama’s ” C H A N G E ” working out for ya so far, DOG ?
deegee
April 28th, 2009
4:01 pm
It might be down to 20% since Arlen Specter jumped ship.
Al
April 28th, 2009
4:14 pm
While I have never played the lottery, not a scratch off, not a quick pick, no mega millions for me, I am grateful that it subsidizes my child’s college education. Top of her class she was accepted at Emory and Ga Tech, but without the help we would be forced to take out a loan of some sort, there is no way we could afford to pay for all of it with just our salaries. HOPE Sholarship pays $4000.00/semester and that is barely a drop in the bucket for college these days. Let’s talk about HOPE GRANT, it is there for anyone who is willing to go to technical school rather than attain a degree. If that isn’t for the poor and disenfranchised who make have less than a 3.0 GPA what is? The down side and most regretable of all is exactly what so many of you have said, corruption and greed within the state, the Lottery commision, and worst of all the colleges themselves who have take advantage of what they see is easy money. Just think how much fun Socialized Medicine will be.
Jake
April 28th, 2009
4:15 pm
Allen – I don’t see the lower socio-economic groups as victims of the big bad Lottery Corporation. Lottery sales are arms length transactions between consenting adults and as such are just about as fair as life gets. Maybe Big Brother shouldn’t be funding college for the middle class, but I don’t think protecting the poor from making bad judgments is Big Brother’s job either. Look at it this way. If the government hadn’t taken my FIT, SIT and SS dollars to provide housing and health care and food stamps for the poor, I could have paid my daughter’s tuition without the HOPE.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
4:38 pm
At a time when the GOP finds itself thrust of necessity into a period of reinvention, what could an Arlen Spector possibly have to offer? He’ll end his days instead as a turncoat and a confused burnout.
The Snark
April 28th, 2009
5:01 pm
Higher education is an investment in society that is worth tax dollars, but our state officials regard taxes as contrary to their ideology. At least, they do when the tax money is not being spent on roads. So, we have the State conducting and actively promoting an activity that would put me in a jail cell if I did it: gambling.
It’s a sorry state of affairs.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
5:13 pm
The Snark,
If you justify state scholarships solely as “an investment in society that is worth tax dollars”, then why view roadbuilding as “gambling”, rather than as similarly lucrative “investment” in the economy?
I’m sorry to see 1,500 scholarships go, but not because of the foregone tax receipts GA might otherwise have garnered from clever students whose incomes might have been enhanced by the publicly funded leg-up.
Republitards R Irrelevant
April 28th, 2009
5:19 pm
The math on the lottery –both the permutations, probibilities, and stats of who plays the most is damning. People pay to have their fantacies stoked. They have a much better chance of being hit in the face on the way to brush their teeth in the morning.
I took a break after an early morning start, and low and behold. 59 done falled right down in our laps. We’ll have 60 before the summer is over. So much for Saxbutt Chumpass. Scottish Haggis Specter, who has been ambivalent and reprehensible in so many of his absurd votes while on Senate Judy has done defected from the crazytards–he wants no more of the extreme right where the only votes are in the wingnuthead south. Youi betcha goshdarnit and ah kin see http://www.fivethirtyeight.com from here.
Meanwhile, in court the Bush Obama ” state secrets stance” was dealt a solid blow by the Ninth Circuit.this morning in the Binyan Muhammed case. Hint: Wooten and the rest of the AJCers who now have a high school paper have never heard of this case and don’t have a clue. Neither do the right wing doofuses who kicked Bookman, Downey, and Tucker off the AJC Editorial Board, took Downey and Tucker out of the editorial business, and reduced Bookman’s column frequency.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
5:25 pm
It remains for Specter to distance himself from the gun-toting Bible-huggers of Pennsylvania. Does he suppose he’ll be any more welcomed by Democrats there, after Obama’s display on Nob Hill? It’s pretty obvious that the man is at loose ends, grasping for the next knot to “cling to”. In this case, that knot is his next nomination. And he may get nominated, but he probably won’t be reelected.
What a good riddance this is. Now, to bring Lieberman out of the cold and even up the score–
catlady
April 28th, 2009
5:32 pm
No problem here with the lottery. I’d rather someone buy tickets than cigarettes or booze. I don’t waste a cent on it, but I say thank you for any benefit it provides education. I believe that adults can decide what they spend their money on without the state telling them what to do (as long as it is legal). If they are stupid enough to blow $100 or $10 per week, then that is their problem.
Of course, the state has decreased its pay into education, co-incidentally. Look at what GA used to put into need based scholarships (SIG as I recall the name) vs what it does now. The HOPE has completely decimated the state paid NEED based scholarships. So, as you note, the middle and upper SES kids largely get a free ride on tuition (at least until reality bites them and they find out that that 3.0 doesn’t cut it in college.) And look at the data to see who gets the HOPE–largely upper 1/3 SES kids.
It’s a reverse “transfer of wealth” sort of thing, with long-term effects.
winner!
April 28th, 2009
5:35 pm
i am upper middle class.. i won 50k on a ticket.. bad odds my a$$.. god bless the GA lottery!
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
5:47 pm
Or is it, Bible-thumping gun-huggers clinging to their next nomination? I have trouble remembering the order of Obama’s insults of Pennsylvania voters. There were so many insults, enough to go around.
Maybe we should ask Plouffe how it went. Perhaps he remembers almost as well as Pennsylvania’s voters will do when it comes time to stomp Arlen Specter like the orange-suited, day-release cur he really is.
With this defection Specter has thrown in with Swedish socialism, a good illustration of which is the new TV commercial in which the older gent, at the wheel, refuses to relinquish the station wagon’s keys to its rightful owners, a couple who sit in the backseat variously cowed and wowed. I bet both of them recently reported to Rasmussen in favor of Socialism. Amd I wonder whether they ever got the keys to their car without fist passing their exam.
Chris Broe
April 28th, 2009
5:50 pm
Two things about Tim Wooten’s lottery piece…………..one. Two.
Fun with words. Nothing wrong with that. Not saying there’s anything wrong with Jim Worten, okay?
I am saying there’s something wrong with Gay Bookman, though.
So, two points. One, Jon Worsted: nothing wrong. Two, Gay Buckman: wrong.
Jklol.
Republitards R Irrelevant
April 28th, 2009
5:57 pm
The odds are mathematically terrible. and there are a bell shaped curve of people who can’t afford to play to prove it. They clog up the lines at most gas stations.
Maybe the pubtards can win an election on Mars or Pluto–just not this planet. Boy Michale Steele and the clown from Alaska sure left ya in great shape. Obama doesn’t even need the 50 vote reconciliation although I wouldn’t count on Specter to be consistent wherever he hangs out.
Congrats on the Ninth Circuit Defeat for the Bush State Secrets claim. The torture birdies are comin’ home to roost.
Masks –a stupid waste of time.
Tamiflu and Relenza for asymptomatic people– a stupid Rx by your stupid doctor which will build the resistance of Swine Flu that is growing by the hour faster than stock prices of GSK and Roche.
Get some brains mama didn’t give ya.
Republitards R Irrelevant
April 28th, 2009
6:07 pm
Kathleen Sibilius has been confirmed as HHS Secretary. She opposes single payer. 15,000 physicians do. Insurance companies and their lobbyists of course don’t. We’ll see.
Republitards R Irrelevant
April 28th, 2009
6:08 pm
Whoops Sibelius.
Republitards R Irrelevant
April 28th, 2009
6:09 pm
2 e’s for Sebelius. Right wing religioustards right to life nuts lost again.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
6:09 pm
Just as I meant “and” rather than “amd”, I meant @5:47 to wonder whether the apprentice capitalists from Sweden got their car keys without “first” passing, rather than “fist passing” their exam. But “fist passing” works better in this instance.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
6:19 pm
I’m excited by the confirmation of Governor Supersilious. In her party’s response to GWB’s last State of the Union she promised that Democrats, if elected to a majority, would “reduce global warming” within 12 months. As today was, to my taste, prematurely hot, I look forward to her adjustment of the thermostat.
Jim Jr
April 28th, 2009
6:37 pm
** Senate – 60 – the magical number**
Thanks W. you made it all possible.
TW
April 28th, 2009
6:48 pm
“The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a temporary stay of execution to white supremacist William Mark Mize, who killed a man in Oconee County 15 years ago.”
Just trying to make you feel better about the Specter defection, Mr. Wooten.
I Report, You Bedwet
April 28th, 2009
7:07 pm
Once again Copywrong shows how liberalism is a handicap of the mind:
“Bedwetter: As usual when you get all your info from right-wing sites, you’re wrong. Fox News IS broadcasting the President’s speech; the Fox NETWORK AFFILIATE is not.”
Uhm, the last time I checked, Fox NEWS is broadcast on the AFFILIATE FOX stations during presidential speeches and whatnot – you know, the BROADCAST stations that poor people get for free. Fox NEWS will not be BROADCASTING on the AFFILIATE stations. How hard is that to understand? Of course, maybe if your primitive liberal brain stem worked, you’d have noticed the comment at the bottom of that point in my post today:
“The network will instead carry its regularly scheduled episode “Lie to Me,” according to its Web site. The show is among the network’s most popular and draws an average of 13 million viewers a week. That compares to the relatively paltry 4.2 million who watched the president’s last prime-time press conference on Fox. In all, close to 40 million watched that event on one of the eight networks that carried it.”
And then you finish with this:
“Geez, have you EVER been right? I mean, about anything?”
You didn’t DARE tackle how much the poor pay on IRS taxes compared to others, so, I deduce that not challenging any of my posts means that I’m just about ALWAYS right. Now, here’s another chance: prove me WRONG.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
7:15 pm
@I Report,
I wonder how you, or Fox News, can keep track of these things. Seems like El Presidente speechifies about 5x/wk, and that whenever he does it the markets immediately tank. It’s so much to keep up with.
Excuse me. My porta-prompter momentarily zoned out, or out-zoned. I’d meant to proclaim, with a tilt of the head, that “it’s so much up with to keep” in these times that try our nation and our very souls, blah, blah, blah.
@@
April 28th, 2009
7:19 pm
You make it sound as though I should feel guilty, Jim. Although we could have paid out-of-pocket for our daughter’s education, it was she who strived for and maintained her HOPE. She’s proud for having done so.
Her master’s degree will acquired through a joint effort. Us, her and student loans. Her choice.
I’ve always been reluctant to place temptation in the path of the less fortunate. Since the libs here have advocated gambling for revenue, I can only assume that they’re not concerned about the poor. They know the government will initiate some program to pick up the slack.
Me? I’ve got a problem with enslaving individuals to depend on government.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
7:27 pm
This is what the supercilious fantasist said on January 28, 2008:
“There is a chance Mr. President, in the next 357 days, to get real results, and give the American people renewed optimism that their challenges are the top priority. Working together, working hard, committing to results, we can get the job done…the majority in Congress is ready to tackle the challenge of reducing global warming.”
What a swell-headed nutjob. God help the folks at the receiving end of HHS.
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
7:34 pm
O God, O God! I’d meant to say with Winston, of course, “up with WHICH”, and yet by ‘prompter fazed on me again! It’s all so horrible!
To think that I might have to express, let’s say, my concern for the children with fearsome flu symptoms without benefit of intellectual prosthetics! What a fate, what a fete, that might be for such as me.
@ @@,
You go. Make no mistake, government officials do labor every day to empower government at our expense.
It’s how they shine.
GOP is gone
April 28th, 2009
7:44 pm
Jim, there you go again making over simplified blanket statements. You insinuate that all Lottery players are poor and that all Hope scholarship recipients parents are spend thrift slackers who do not save because they don’t have to.
The Lottery has been hugely successful for Georgia students in Pre-K and College. It has also increased the standard of college students admitted to our public universities. And yet you try to spin it as bad.
I for one have sent both of my children to Ga Tech from Hope money and I am very grateful for it. So grateful in fact that I routinely play so that I can help support the next group of students. Do I think I will ever win? No. But I can give a hand to someone else by doing so.
And by the way I save 25% of every paycheck and give to charity every month.
I Report, You Bedwet
April 28th, 2009
7:44 pm
I would like for everyone to take note of Copywrong mentality and the mentality of libtardism in general:
“By the way… Remember all those comments about how the Republican Party is “irrelevant? Well, now it’s official. Yee-haaa!”
The Constitution says otherwise, socket lip lib. We already know your heroes up there hate it. When your beloved Dimocrats were the minority party, they still had power because of it. In any event, you’ve got it ALL now bud. Better not F up, because if you do, there will be NOBODY to blame but yourselves. And guess what bud? That pendulum will swing back the other way (as it always does) faster than you can soil your liberal diaper after split pea soup. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be where you Dimocrats are right now, because 46% of American voters voted AGAINST Obama.
WTF is PoFo drooling about now?
Who cares.
GOP is gone
April 28th, 2009
7:48 pm
Ah, Chris Broe are you 10 years old? You sound like the bully middle schoolers with that sophomoric “gay” thing.
Still Munchin the Carpet
April 28th, 2009
7:52 pm
Somebody wake Wooten up and tell him the GOP has shrunk.
Geez, remember the time when journalism was event-driven? When prominent journalists were eager to be the first on the scene?
And then there’s Maude…uh…I mean, Wooten. One of the Golden Girls of print journalism. A real lion.
And people wonder why newspapers are dying….
Poultry
April 28th, 2009
8:51 pm
Excuse ME! I’d reported earlier that Kansas Governor Kathleen Supersilly boasted of her party’s ability to “reduce global warming” in only 12 months.
I was mistaken. She said the fools could do it in LESS than 12 months.
Well, with a track record like that, no wonder she got confirmed by the Democratic Senate.