State lotteries are a ruse. If that’s a surprise to you, it’s because you haven’t been paying attention. States almost always enter the lottery business by promising a lot of easy money for worthy things, such as public education. But once the politicians get hold of all that easy money, they start moving funds around, and education still ends up hurting. Meanwhile, the poor and, ironically, uneducated, end up losing the most because they play the |
1 Comment
As is the case with many Americans of a certain age, I have memories of a public school cafeteria that included dour workers in hair nets scooping organic material of some sort onto plates we took to long tables, after tossing a nickel at the “milk lady” for a small carton. Still, lunch period was a coveted part of the day. If politics entered into it at all, it might have been between my friend Tommy and me. His parents were Humphrey supporters. Mine A little more than 100 years ago, this gem appeared in the Chicago Tribune under a Washington dateline: “After weeks of study of the complexities of the income tax law, treasury officials today issued a 90 page booklet, christened it, ‘Regulations No. 33,’ and sent it forth to collectors of internal revenue in the expectation that it will clear up many of the misunderstandings concerning the law which have arisen throughout the country." With some issues, you’ve got to cut through the smoke to see what’s really important. Which brings me, naturally, to cigarettes. It may surprise you to know that a good chunk of the few people you see lighting up in Utah (smoking rates here — 10.6 percent in 2012 — are the lowest in the nation), got their cigarettes from across the state’s borders. As political slogans go, “A chicken in every pot” was more effective than “An iPad in every backpack.” For awhile, that is. When Herbert Hoover used that slogan, it helped vault him to the White House in 1928. But when the Great Depression hit, it didn’t prove any more popular than Utah House Speaker Becky Lockhart’s recent iPad plan, which proved as elusive as the top level of Angry Birds. If you live in Utah and have several children, do you get an education “entitlement” from the government because each child is a tax deduction? Or, put a different way, are you burdening the rest of society? Like swallows returning to Capistrano, these notions seem to show up every year during the annual Utah legislative session. It’s time to debunk them. |
Search this siteLike what you read here? Please subscribe below, and we'll let you know when there is a new opinion.
The author
Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities. Archives
November 2023
Categories
All
Links
|