John Hood gets mad - and I'm glad to see it

Personally, I would prefer legalized poker with an on-site tax in North Carolina and no lottery.

One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I went to high school with John and his twin brother. They had this cutsey little act "The Tapping Twins" where they would dress up alike and do a tap dancing routine.

Maybe this is where he learned to tap dance around the truth?

"jump in where you can and hang on"
Briscoe Darling to Sheriff Andy

He may have a point about regressive taxes and all that. But I seriously doubt Hood would be so enthusiastic about this if the loss in revenue was made up by increasing income taxes on the wealthy. He'd change his mind really quick!

But I agree with John Hood, too.

I also agree with him on corporate incentives.

My God, what's happening to me???

complain about revenues, they have only the bitching and moaning side of the arguement down pat, but they never offer the other side? You know, like a solution? Mr. Tappy can be as angry and disgusted as he wants, but until he and his ilk start bringing a solution to the table to counter their complaint, they can just STFU as far as I'm concerned.

In the business world, even the newest Business School graduate knows that you don't go before management with a problem unless you have at least the beginnings of a solution in the works to offset the issue. Then again, management is not exactly their strong point, is it?

North Carolina. Turning the South Blue!

I won't be joining you in that. I think it's a useless waste of time and energy - a distraction when there are truly important issues out there for us to pay attention to. Lottery, Schmottery. I'm more worried about the actual state of the schools, the actual preparation of teachers, and the actual condition of education in the state.

Hood paints a picture of degradation, of grown men desperately scratching off tickets. He didn't take the time to get to know the men, he took the opportunity to lecture to his sons - what does he call them? The Conqueror and The Little General? Whatever. Sounds like what the asshole guys in college used to name their penises. How ridiculous.

But for whatever reason, Hood was angry.

Angry that because the “Education Lottery” is a state enterprise, not just the creation of some amoral flim-flam man, I had to explain to my boys that what the men were doing was unwise and self-destructive but officially encouraged by North Carolina’s elected government leaders. I can’t blame the boys for being confused. They’ve never entertained the idea that adults in positions of authority might urge people to be foolish or sinful.

Oh bullshit. It might be unwise for those men, and it might not be. John Fucking Hood decided based upon appearances how someone else ought to be spending their own money. Fuck him, and fuck him for deciding what is "foolish and sinful". It's none of his damn business what those men do with their money, and in any other situation, he would be arguing the same thing. But put "lottery" in front of it, and all of a sudden he knows better.

Disgusted that North Carolina politicians had chosen to take advantage of these desperate and deluded lottery players, and thousands like them across the state, to finance more government spending, much of it benefiting higher-income households.

Like most bullshit bloviators - this asshole shows us know evidence of what he's talking about - he just assumes that we'll take his word for it. I don't think it's benefitting higher income households. I don't know. I haven't seen any evidence either way. So I'm calling Bullshit on this one.

And "Desperate and Deluded"? Jeebus H. Tapdancing Keyrice. Stereotype much, you prig?

When it came right down to it, most elected state politicians chose to redistribute income from the poor to the middle-class and wealthy, tempt North Carolinians to destroy themselves and their household finances, and bring state government into disrepute.

Again - the priggish butthead shows no evidence of this "redistribution of wealth". I don't think he'd know true redistribution of wealth if it bit him on the ass.

There - that's how I feel about John Hood and his stupid little lottery games.

As for you Anglico - I love you, man - but there is a lot more important stuff going on. The Navy is still trying to get an OLF in NC. The statewide waiting list for Child Care Subsidy is astronomical. This is a colossal waste of energy over something that is a done deal.

If you don't like the lottery, don't play. Work to make sure that revenues from it go towards good things. (Did you know that in Georgia, there is statewide universal pre-k for all four year olds and it's paid for with their lottery?)

When you find yourself agreeing with John Hood again, stand up, step away from the keyboard, and kick yourself in the ass.

but we need to do what should have been done a long time ago—let the voters decide.

For years, those who opposed the Lottery fought efforts to have this decided via referendum. Whatever their stated reasons, it boiled down to, "The general public can't be trusted to act in their own best interest on this subject."

So the GA swings the other way a little bit, and all of a sudden we have a Lottery. Once more, the voters are ignored.

It's elitism on both sides of this issue, as far as I'm concerned. Arguments for and against need to be presented to the public, followed by a YES/NO choice on the 2008 ballot.

but I worry about "packing the GA with people who will appeal the Lottery" will lead to packing the GA with people who will repeal a lot of good things this GA has done. It's a baby/bathwater thing.

I grew up about 40 miles SE of Troy in Moore County in a small community called "Clayroad Farm" right outside of what is now Whispering Pines. On Friday and Saturday evenings, the farmers would gather outside the local community store that my father, and his father before him owned at the crossroads. They would all gather around one of the big red Coke boxes that lined the outside front of the store. Each man in the circle that often approached a dozen but seldom numbered less than 5, would pull out a nickel and buy a Coke. They never popped the cap. As soon as it dropped into the slot, they would pull out the bottle, move away from the group, and quickly flip the bottle upside down to read the raised glass logo on the bottle that described where the bottle came from. That is which bottling plant.
On the side of the Coke box was a map of the Southeast with bright red circles drawn around the names of all the bottling plants for Coke in the SE. Each site was marked with a number that indicated how far that plant was from where they stood at the corner at Clayroad Farm.
Even though the drink only cost them a nickel, they were back then in the early 1960's already betting a quarter a drink on who would win "Far Away". After every pull, they would hand the winner his quarter and you could hear it jingle when he tossed them into the right side pocket of his tobacco spit stained bib overalls. In between "pulls", they would discuss the pros and cons of whether I Beverly Lake would have been a better governor of NC than Terry Sanford had been thus far. But then, they would re-focus, plug another nickel into the the slot and dream of a far away place on the map so that they could be the next one to rattle the quarters.
You see, Anglico, back then my Dad was the state of North Carolina because it was my job about 9:00 PM to settle up with all these farmers. I paid each of them 2 cents a bottle for every bottle they pulled. It was the least we could do, because we didn't want all these guys drinking all these Cokes and growing fatter from all that sugar. Back then, Coke used real sugar in their drinks unlike the god-awful high fructose corn syrup they use today.
At 2 cents, we pocketed an extra penny over the three cents we paid for Coke to load the machines. You see, these farmers have always needed some fun to take their minds off the numbing business of surviving in the rural South. They found a way to gamble, swear, and fuss about the government all the time. It hasn't changed.
I just hope that with the new study out today on the increase of our nation's kids that live in low income families that attend our public schools that we can find some way to educate them that works.
Take a look at the problems we face at the Southern Education Foundation site http://www.sefatl.org/showTeaser.asp?did=541
As a commenter above said, we have more important fish to fry than what the John Hood Foundation believes and the fact that you agree with them.

tick tock tick tock . . . guess maybe he's not going to take me up on my offer.

Shoot.