John Oliver schools us about the NC Education Lottery: “Lotteries provided no additional funding for education in 21 of the 24 states that dedicate lottery funds for education. As math students in one of those states would put it, that is nearly 50%! How is this possible? Let’s look at NC. Their governor inaugurated the NC Education lottery nearly a decade ago with big promises: ‘When the lottery is fully implemented, we’ll be adding another half billion million annually for education.’ Half a billion dollars extra? That sounds great! You’d think by now NC’s preschoolers would be strutting around in fine bespoke suits, quoting Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. But in fact, NC currently spends less per student on education than it did when the lottery even began. And if you’re thinking, ‘how the f*ck is that possible?’ It’s because money in state budgets tends to move around a lot. Trying to add money just for one purpose is a bit like trying to piss in one corner of a swimming pool. It’s going all over the place no matter what you claim. Let me give you a narrow example. In 2012, NC used $100 million dollars of lottery money for school construction but that didn’t mean the school construction budget was 100 million bigger than it would have been because while that money was flowing in, other money was flowing out. ‘A portion of corporate income taxes used to go toward construction but when the lottery passed that tax money went away, substituted with lottery revenue.’ Where did that corporate tax money go? Who knows? There’s not even a warm spot where it once was. But in a completely unconnected development, NC plans to cut corporate taxes substantially over the next few years. So, thanks for playing the Education Lottery, NC! Better luck next time! | https://youtube/watch?v=9PK-netuhHA
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 02:10:40 +0000
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