The Irony of Public Policy

exploring legislative proposals in Arkansas

 

Everyone is out for a bargain. Stores advertise “annual” close-out sales at least four times a year, and many other stores seem to be on the verge of losing their leases, so “everything must go”. We consumers are eager to save a few bucks on things we need and even on some things we don’t need but if we are offered these things at “rock bottom prices”, we show up for these “specially marked down prices”, some of which “will not be seen again”. So many slogans are designed to get our attention and offer to lead us to the Promised Land as we are also led to believe that the store is willing to take a loss just to move merchandise, so we are keen on those bargains that just seem to scream at us. There is nothing, however, that beats a two-for-one sale.

 

We like two-fers. And in Arkansas it seems that our state government has figured out that if they are going to sell a bad bill of goods, they need only to convince us that we are getting a sweet deal. And nothing – I mean NOTHING – is sweeter than getting two-for-the-price-of-one.

 

Our own lieutenant governor is trying to convince us that college scholarships and instant wealth are just around the corner; all we have to be willing to do is vote for his lottery proposal. Arkansas is also in need of a medical trauma system, so Rep. Gene Shelby, D-Hot Springs proposes to finance it with an additional cigarette tax, the same tax proposal that failed to even make it out of committee in 2007. There is something sinister going on with these two proposals, and the reasoning for either makes no sense no matter how each is proposed because what may appear to be working in tandem with another is completely unrelated to the first part.

 

These are four distinctly separate issues being floated about, but our state’s politicians would have us believe that each is somehow connected; i.e., the lottery will finance scholarships, and the additional cigarette tax will fund a state-wide trauma system. There are faulty premises on each that do not consider the tenuous financing that is coupled. For instance, the additional tax (currently at .59) of .50 on cigarettes will raise an additional $70 million to $75 million annual on a system that, according to estimates, will require approximately $25 million. Then the state director of the Arkansas Department of Health says the tax is a good idea to encourage people to give up cigarettes. Surely the irony is apparent.

 

So what happens if the director’s wish that everyone quits smoking comes true? The revenue source is endangered; then what? One thing is accomplished at the risk of another, and surely the trauma system is a good idea, at least on the surface. So if the state legislature was unable to “find” funding for the much-needed trauma system last time around (in the middle of a colossal revenue surplus, no less), how is reaching for a shaky funding source, perhaps ideally designed to burn itself out, going to make this trauma system a sustained reality? And why should only one segment of the tax-paying public be responsible for a system whose sole source of revenue is unrelated to trauma and will ultimately benefit everyone? If a trauma system is worth having at all, it is worth paying for with a self-sustaining source of revenue. These are two separate issues, yet one irony.

 

Another irony must acknowledge statistics which suggest that it is generally low-income, uneducated citizens who spend the most on lottery tickets in Arkansas’ neighboring states. The Arkansas lottery proposal does not seek to fund education, per se, but it does propose to make available college scholarship funds so that the poor and uneducated will have an opportunity to change or enhance their social standing. As a result of the poor and uneducated funding their own scholarships, presumably to end their own poverty and ignorance, suddenly everyone is no longer poor or ignorant. They have ideally gained knowledge and wisdom and have come to the conclusion that buying a lottery ticket as a pretense to anything other than selfish gain (at a billion-to-one odds, no less) is nothing more than a tax on silliness, wishful thinking, greed, or a combination of all. 

 

If there is a legitimate need for college scholarships in Arkansas that will offset those who were unable to go to school on grants, loans, and other state and privately sponsored scholarships, then I would suggest that the people of Arkansas be shown those who were unable to attend a state university due to a lack of money. And I would strongly suggest that the people of Arkansas be able to see that otherwise QUALIFIED students were somehow denied the opportunity. How many young people who made the grades in high school were unable to go to college due to a lack of funds? How many did not go because they did not pursue every single avenue of higher education funding? How much scholarship money around the state, public and private, went unclaimed because deserving students did not know the funds existed? My guess is that the number of deserving, qualified students who did not know about the many funding alternatives and did not go to school is not as high as Bill Halter’s proposal might try to suggest. 

 

There is money available for higher education, but it will not be served on a dinner plate and laid before the potential student. It has to be sought, it has to be applied for, it has to be earned (work-study programs), and some must be paid back (student loans), but money is there. If someone has a genuine desire to attend college, the means to do so is already available now without a lottery. Mr. Halter tells us that his proposal will raise $100 million dollars for college scholarships (that number is disputed by other sources). My question is: are we coming up $100 million dollars short of what is currently needed?

 

Let us at least be honest with ourselves and with one another as we demand full disclosure from the pro-lottery people. A lottery is not “needed” to help educate Arkansans. A lottery is a lottery. It is a game, a game of chance that must not be promoted or used as a means to any legitimate end; it should be sold just as it is. It is a game, period. It is, in my humble opinion, a monumentally bad idea on so many levels, but being sold as an answer to what may or may not be a legitimate need or as a source of state revenue is an insult to the intelligence of voters. And it is made even more so by pretending to cover some shortage when Arkansas has been running budget surpluses for the past several years because of rather aggressive tax policies. How much more surplus needs to be accumulated before we realize that the only thing this state is short of right now is a good idea?