It's a better investment for them than buying insurance.
The lottery is a regressive tax on mathematical skills.
All these lotteries are viewed by the ‘masses’ as their IRA of choice. Just another stop on the road to perdition.
This is ridiculous.
Do we or do we not have a choice not to pay tax (and taxes)?
Your Honor, I rest my case.
OMG!
Why, that could have bought a pack of cigarettes, or a gallon of gas, or lunch, or a pound of hamburger or a loaf of...nevermind, none of that....
But it buys a shot at a half billion dollars?
What's a mutha to do?
Of course poor people will take a shot.
Likely it is a tax on whoever buys a chance. It gives the buyer a masochistic form of entertainment. It is, however, voluntary.
When the lottery hits $100M or more, I buy a few tickets. I don’t expect to win, but it’s a nice little dream. And it comes out of beer money.
I don’t think people should be spending hundreds on it, but if they want to throw that much away in 1 fell swoop, OK by me. Unless it’s welfare money meant to help feed their kids... THEN it isn’t.
It always cracks me up when liberals write this kind of hand-wringing drivel. It’s like all they can do to not just come right out and “explain” that the poor are simply really freaking stupid.
If people are too stupid to realize all their "freebies" aren't so free, so be it.
Things that are voluntary aren’t a tax. It’s unfortunate that the people that can least afford to waste their money are the ones more likely to waste it on the lottery, but that kind of decision making is a large part of why they’re poor. There’s plenty of other stuff they can’t afford but buy anyway.
Just did a quick calculation... The 2Brains household spends 1/3 of 1% of it’s pretax dollars on the lottery. Even that’s too much, of course, but what can I say? I’m weak.
Well, daggone it... personal responsibility would go a long way toward...
Oh, never mind...
Oh if only...In the blink of an eye I would transform from a working stiff to a professional gentleman of leisure. I'd be a man of qualitay.
That is until the gov claimed it for redistributive purposes.
My favorite are the idiots that were complaining about “Bush’s high gas prices” as the drop a $20 on scratch offs. I called many of them morons to their faces and just got blank stares in return.
The stats in the article are also the reason why bankruptcies are extremely frequent with lottery winners. Poor people do things that keep them poor, rich people do things that make them rich.
Being broke is a temporary economic situation, being poor is a state of mind. Good thing we are governing in a manner that creates more poor thinkers.
I could not disagree more with this article. Nothing paid voluntarily, for whatever reason, can be a tax. Whether spending money on lottery tickets is wise makes for a fair argument, but to suggest it is a tax (because the poor are too stupid to think for themselves, or elect not to?) is to redefine a well-understood word.
if it’s a tax, then it’s a tax on the willing. the unwilling don’t have to play...
It’s not a tax at all - free people freely choose to buy lottery tickets or they don’t.
Oh, and show me a household that “earns” less than $13,000 a year but doesn’t get at least that amount or more in tax-free taxpayer-funded government assistance and I’ll show you some beautiful swampland for sale in Florida.