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Then again, it'll be only $30 million after taxes...
Congrats to the Rivers family from Indiana who won the $89 million lottery, a week after Mr. Rivers was laid off from work. The family of four, who are currently living in a mobile home, say they want to buy a house and go back to school.
Not to put a damper on the Rivers' good fortune, but I wonder how many other unemployed workers with families to support are now going to start pouring money into lottery tickets in order to get their own 'big break' only to find their financial situation getting worse and worse...
March 16, 2004 in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
Yet...
1. As long as it isn't beer...legisatively approved taxes are just dandy, right?
2. Doesn't the Mormon Doctrine of Agency justify lotteries? A lottery is a form of voluntary taxation. I would have thought Mormons, libertarians, and small-government conservatives would be all over voluntary, rather than coerced, taxation?
Posted by: Effiminate Heterosexual Law Student | Mar 22, 2004 10:56:37 AM
As I recall, the Church opposes lotteries for more or less the reason I hinted at; a lot of poor people tended to put too much of their limited financial resources into lottery tickets, looking for that one big break instead of something more stable and productive. It works out great for the one in a million that actually wins, but not so good for the others. I haven't seen any statistics in this matter myself, though.
If you're asking me personally, though, I don't have a problem with lotteries for just the reason you mentioned: voluntary taxation. Government gets money, and we don't have to pay it if we don't want to. (Gambling is a totally separate issue, though, since that money goes to private companies) I do care if lotteries turn out to be regressive taxes in essence (i.e. getting most of their money from lower income people), but there's a point where you can't make excuses for the choices of others; no one forces you to buy lottery tickets and if you choose to spend more money than is financially wise on lottery tickets, then that's your choice. I personally don't believe we should be spending a lot of time and effort into 'protecting people from their own choices' when one of the fundamental principles of living on Earth is free agency and the ability to make your own choices, good or bad.
Posted by: The Baron | Mar 23, 2004 7:48:56 AM
