A Little Late Perhaps....
Governor Mike Beebe, who to his credit voted against the lottery, says that the oft-plagued government entity will get more scrutiny this legislative session. Sigh. The time for scrutiny was before the amendment was voted on. Then the time for scrutiny was when they were drafting the bill to empower it. Sadly, the big media in this state refused to do that, leaving the electorate, sans readers of this blog and a few other ignored voices, woefully ignorant of what they were voting on.
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Friday, December 10, 2010
3 Comments:
Another amendment proposal should be put on the ballot that would scratch the lottery authorization/law we have now, and start all over. Although I'm against the lottery, and have not bought a single ticket, I wouldn't object to keeping one, PROVIDED, the current clowns & outlaws running it are ousted. A new amendment would also get the current Board members off the hook on firing Passailague, get rid of the current overpaid employees (especially Bardon, Middleton & Baldridge), clear up the issue of lottery vending machines, and hopefully could be structured so as to allow more money to go to scholarships, which was what the original lottery was supposed to do. Passailague & Co.'s exercise so far has been one of what NOT to do in implementing a lottery. I say throw the current bums out, wipe the slate clean & begin anew.
Why have a state-controlled lottery at all? It's an awful idea, a sick joke. It sounds like something the corrupt governments of old Europe would do-- a government selling tickets for nothing but chances and splitting the prize money. Yet, here we are.
When the state regulates lotteries, they can protect people. When the state itself runs the lottery, they are their own regulators. How can that not end badly? It's not that its going bad in this case, but that it will go bad every time because its a flawed concept.
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