Dapper Don, King of Denial--Lottery stirs less attention this time

Displaying his profound ability to sincerely and simultaneously believe two mutually exclusive ideas, Dog's Hind Leg spouts forth with this gem:

[...] Siegelman admits the lottery has been a "sleeper issue" in terms of media coverage and campaign debate, but he says it's the No. 1 issue voters want to talk to him about.

"The vast majority of people supported the lottery last time. We just got out-voted," Siegelman said. [...]

Yeah, whatever. Siegelman still labors under the false impression that he won the last election over Tinker Fob through the promise of a state-wide lottery to fund education. Don has never seemed to understand that he beat Fob James not because of his stupid lottery proposal, but because James was a great big, hulking, moronic embarrassment to the State of Alabama, which, given our incredible ability to embarrass ourselves, is saying quite a lot. ANYTHING was better than Fob, including someone as avaricious and venal as Mr. Siegelman.

The fact is, plenty of money IS available in this state for The Children™, but we will never be able to access it until we really decide to fix our stupid state constitution. Siegelman, apparently concerned that he not be painted as a tax and spend liberal (much better to be painted as venal and avaricious), thinks that the best solution is one which holds out the dishonest promise of something for nothing. Oh sure, folks spend lots of money playing the Georgia and Florida lottery, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Just like the stupid taxation provisions of our current constitution prey disproportionately upon the poor and stupid, a lottery does the same thing. And this claptrap about making "big, out of state corporations pay their fair share" is just baloney-flavored hogwash, although it again points to Siegelman's pathological inability to find any equitable solutions. You want Big Corporations to pay their fair share? Then quit promoting these economic development deals to lure the Hondas and Mercedes and Toyotas to the state--all that money could be used for The Children™, you know!

In the end, the people of the State of Alabama owe it to themselves to not gamble on the education of their kids. If free, compulsory public education is truly valued and deemed desireable (as it has been through most of the history of the American republic) then it falls to each citizen to pull his or her fair load. The best way anyone has found so far has been through the use of property taxes. They are a more stable, more equitable source of funding for this purpose than money filtched from the pockets of the stupid.

In the end, though, no fundamental, fair change will ever be possible until we take control of our destiny by correcting the cumbersome and misanthropic 1901 constitution. We will forever be wasting huge wads of cash through duplication of services, inefficiency, political posturing, greed, and fraud, and always come up at the end of the month going to the payday loan store or pawning our car title or trying to scrape together change out of the couch cushions.
posted by Terry at 8:45:00 AM