There is an issue with that. No one "Paid" in. It's not a tax collected. People bought lottery tickets, with the understanding that the purpose of the lottery is to support education in the state.

When the Lottery was started in this state we were told it was going to be strictly for education. Now it's used for everything EXCEPT education. Shut it down. The costs outweigh the benefits.

Take a look at the budget for the state of TN. They are balanced budget wise and have money in the bank that they want to return to the people.

They could do that by building more "public" buildings they don't need or by giving themselves raises they have not deserved. Their proposed solution is to give kids a education. Could the money be spent elsewhere? Yep. That's why he is proposing this, s their citizens can talk about it.

BTW, the roads in TN are some of the best in the country. The school system ranks pretty high. Their public health program is efficient and effective, I have a niece who is a special needs child and the help the state has offered her and the family is remarkable in scope and vale to the "client".

If these things weren't in order I'd suggest they have other priorities, but they seem to be making things work, which is a far cry from my own state of IL which is a total mess.

No one, including myself, was pretending that gambling never hurts anyone. Like most things, when taking to the extreme it can be very dangerous to a person and their family.

I am also not the judge of what is and is not moral. My statement was more of a disclaimer that you and another member might object and say everyone in the state was now on a freight train bound for hell because of it. I attempting to forestall this turning into a religious debate like so many other topics have lately.

Honestly, I have never purchased a lotto ticket in my life. My wife has from time to time, but I don't control her actions.

Will
say it ain 't so that you buy those heinous scratch offs. If there 's two things I hate it is 1. paying for fuel inside and 2. Being behind a customer buying those damn things and making me wait!

WillH. I just happen to be in a relaxed mood (too much?) so offer the following thought on your last sentence. With a few severe laws, and that kind of punishment, government could sell tickets. There would be so much demand it could replace taxes. Imperial Rome did it successfully for many decades, before collapse.

It is a discussion we have had before. As khalling noted here, although many libertarians including Ayn Rand suggested lotteries as a non-coercive way to raise state revenues, the fact remains that it puts them in the gambling business - which they regulate and suppress. Not just anyone can run their own lotteries.

Also, as pointed out here by FreedomForAll, governments just waste what moneys (and resources) they do have. That is a deeper issue. Governments do not make ECONOMIC decisions; they make POLITICAL decisions, which of necessity are malinvestments.

(On the side issue of law and law enforcement, we make the one exception for the one task for which the government does have a moral mandate.)

The explosion in government funding of education has not raised the salaries of professors or created more jobs for them; we do not have more and better college libraries, certainly. It is the ADMINISTRATIONS that have benefited... no surprise there...

They're free to do that and I have never supported the state being in the lottery business. Evil is not just a mystical reference. Profoundly immoral and manevolent. Nope religion doesn 't have the trademark.

Good point freedom. I 'd like to add lottery proceeds are due to the state restricting private lottery from operating in the same way, creating an artificial market for the state. Kids are not entitled to college. Sounds nice, but I don 't gamble. :)

It's too early to tell. Right now the lottery, which of course is not a tax, can more than afford the program. I do not know if the result of this will be a uncontrolled draining on the lottery, a lowering of winnings by those who win the lottery, or if the program will succeed just fine.

No problem, WillH. Probably most here realize that many states have lotteries that are supposed to do that. The more money governments get the more they waste. Often they appear initially to have the people's best interests, but concentration of power (via money) is insidious. Another problem is that state run schools are just propaganda mills, teaching the young to follow the rules and never teaching how to think critically and rationally, but that's another issue.

What is so wrong about having to pay for your own education to begin with? Isn't it a value for value exchange?

Perhaps I should have prefaced it saying that the Tennessee Lottery was created as a means of supporting the educational system to begin with.

No. I will break it down simple to you. I think you can do whatever you want so long as you do not hurt anyone else. There is nothing hypocritical about that.

I figured there would be a couple of people on here that would curse the lottery as a form of gambling and blame all the rot in society on it. The might then scream that it should be banned, and anyone who ever bought a ticket be drawn and quartered, racked, burned at the stake, gassed, drugged, and finally shot.

There's a lot we don't know about this that would really be required in order to make a reasoned response.

How many students do you have that graduate from high school who cannot go to college today?
What is your high school dropout rate?
What about students who transfer into Tenn from other states?

If a majority of your students manage to go to college without your assistance, I'd say you just don't need to go there. Also if your high-school dropout rate is higher than the national average, I'd say you need to spend money getting kids to reach for THT golden ring. Treating students from your state in one way - by giving them a free education, yet treating transfer students as second class by charging them much more will cost you state more than just money, brain power will stay away.

Yeah...like healthcare.. If I don't submit to a healthscreening I get charged more... and it's not like I can opt out...legally.