Lottery Could Prove Unlucky For N.C. Poor

When Election Day was over, lottery supporters might have thought they hit the jackpot.

Mike Easley was elected N.C. governor after having a lottery as one of his major platform planks. What's more, the folks south of the border voted to amend their state constitution to allow a lottery.

A "Your Voice, Your Vote" poll conducted in August by 15 newspapers around North Carolina showed that 65 percent of people surveyed supported the idea of a state lottery for education.

And with both South Carolina and Virginia sapping away dollars that could potentially go toward education in this state, a lottery here seems to be politically inevitable.

Not so fast.

A lottery isn't a cash cow with no consequences; it could hurt the very people it's intended to help.

The fundamental problem with most lotteries is that they are regressive taxes on the poor. A study released last year by the congressionally sponsored National Gambling Impact Study Commission have shown that households with annual incomes less than $10,000 spend $520 annually on state lotteries, while households with incomes greater than $100,000 spend only $338.

While this is a small difference in real terms, it marks a huge difference in the proportion of income spent; low-income families spend at least 5 percent of their money on the lottery while high-end households allot less than 0.3 percent of their budget.

There is clearly an equity issue here.

Leo McCarthy, a member of the commission, said the group was concerned by lotteries' regressive effects.

"If (players') income is over $100,000 a year, who cares?" he asked. "That's not an area where government involvement should be an issue. If it's someone making $30,000 a year with three kids, it's different."

The commission recommended that states take time to complete a detailed cost-benefit analysis before starting new lotteries.

Most states have ignored that advice, but last year's lottery battle in Alabama shows how concerned citizens can mobilize to inform the public of lotteries' consequences and turn the tide of popular support.

Don Siegelman ran for the Alabama governor's office in 1998 promising to bring a lottery modeled on Georgia's HOPE Scholarship to the state. He won the election, and promised to fulfill his campaign promise with popular support for a lottery surging past 75 percent.

It would seem logical that when the candidate pushing for a lottery wins the general election, voters must want a lottery too.

"The people of Alabama voted for me, at least in part, to ensure their kids had a better chance in life," Siegelman said two months before the referendum. "They want to vote on this issue. To me there was a clear mandate to bring the lottery to Alabama."

That mandate was a little fuzzier than Siegelman and his advisors had anticipated, for voters turned down the lottery in the state's Oct. 12, 1999, referendum.

This turnaround can be attributed in large part to citizens' groups who mobilized to publicize the dangers of a lottery. Naming their groups Citizens for Accountability, Citizens Against Gambling With Education and Citizens Against Legalized Lottery, lottery foes organized a grassroots effort encouraging voters to consider whether state government should be in the business of encouraging people to make poor choices.

Although many of them had Christian leanings, they weren't stereotypical Bible-beaters. They were simply socially conscious citizens who realized Alabama could fund its education in a more equitable way, as can North Carolina.

A lottery shouldn't be a sure thing in North Carolina without careful consideration of the issues, the costs and the benefits.

We can make our own road map; there's no need to follow South Carolina down the wrong path.

Columnist Anne Fawcett can be reached at fawcetta@hotmail.com.