“The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention…
“It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal, if not the only, reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made their living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and luck amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed, everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid off, the winners of the big prizes being nonexistent persons.”
George Orwell, “1984.”
Kansas Lotto? Kansas Powerball?
For years the political and legal establishments – there’s a large overlap in membership – have quietly but effectively screwed the working class and poor of Kansas.
It’s not just that we’ve encouraged gambling through state sponsored lotteries and casinos. It’s that it was done cynically, knowing full well all the social costs attendant with legalizing gambling.
Not only is it a way to prey upon the poor financially, but all the indices of social pathology soar; bankruptcy, embezzlement, and divorce, to name just a few. (It’s justified “as more money for schools,” forgetting that schools are supposed to serve society’s needs, not society serve the school’s needs.)
Other shameful forms of exploitation of the less affluent include 30 year tax abatements on real estate taxes for big developers. (Home owners have to pick up the tab for the cost of infrastructure.) TIF bonds and STAR bonds are ways to shift the risk to the public while retaining the reward for private corporate interests when big projects like the Kansas Speedway, Cabelas, etc are created.
Finally, special benefit districts are another way to shift the cost of capital spending on roads, sewers, street-lights to surrounding property owners from the business owners who actually benefit from the improvements. (Think the SPRINT campus in Overland Park.)
One particularly egregious program is called “PEAK” (Promoting Employment Across Kansas). It allows businesses which move here to withhold state income tax from their employees and keep the money for themselves.
Talk about corporate welfare! Continue reading →
Before March Madness takes too firm a hold…
