Taxation By Exploitation
The Message of Government at the Time of “The Greatest Generation”
During the Great Depression, leaders like NYC Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (watch the brief news clip below) aggressively went after those who preyed on the financial struggles of his city’s working class.
What we now call “The Greatest Generation” challenged citizens to help make America and their families stronger by buying government savings bonds. Today, the daily voice of government to most citizens during the worst economic crisis since then is casinos and state lotteries. After forty years, it’s time government pulled out of the predatory gambling business because it is a failed policy.
The video is part of a “25 years ago today” UN newsreel story issued September 24, 1959.
Government Revenues from Predatory Gambing
A 2009 report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government concluded that predatory gambling exacerbates long term budgetary problems for states.
2009-09-21-No_More_Jackpot Rockefeller Report
Future Growth in Revenue Will Not Keep Pace With Tax Revenue or Spending
The slides below are from a presentation by the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the 2009 SPG Foundation Conference. It outlines recent national trends in gambling revenue, growth in gambling revenue compared to growth in tax revenue and expenditures, and points for consideration by policymakers.
Rockefeller Institute – Trends in Gambling Revenue to the States
Harrah’s Resort Fined for Missing Tax Revenue Data
Harrah’s Resort has been fined $20,000 after New Jersey gaming investigators discovered that key electronic data was missing from the casino’s slot machines for 154 days in 2008 and 2009. The computer data provides an accurate count of the cash inside the machines and also helps the state to calculate its share of the tax revenue generated by slot play.
Harrah’s Fined $20,000 for Missing Slot Machine Data
Schools’ slices of lottery pie small, getting smaller in Oklahoma
With more than 500 Oklahoma school districts vying for their cut of the funds and only 35 percent of gross proceeds going to education, the lottery pie gets sliced hundreds of different times before an individual school district sees its portion. The result: The amount in lottery funds sent to individual school districts in Oklahoma has been relatively small. Read below to learn more how the Oklahoma Lottery has (not surprisingly) failed to fund education in the way proponents had promised citizens.
Schools’ slice of lottery pie small, getting smaller