PLATFORM : The Lottery Scam
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The establishment of a lottery in California was sold to voters by marketers of lottery merchandise using support of schools as a banner issue. Voters thought this was too good to be true--we can finance our schools with petty cash. It was. The lottery has never funded more than 3% of the cost of California schools. Its contribution has now dropped to just over 2%.
The lottery “bonanza” was almost immediately offset by the governor’s pressuring the Legislature to reduce state funding by at least that amount and more. My friends, relatives, students’ parents and community leaders are still often amazed to hear that the lottery does not provide a major portion of school funding.
Lottery funds could be beneficial to schools if the proceeds were targeted for specific areas. Lottery funds must not, as they do now, supplant funds that the state is obligated to provide to make the schools what they should be--the nation’s best.
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