Schwarzenegger's lottery idea questioned

[antigop]

Source: Associated Press Yahoo! News

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is dramatically overestimating the jackpot the state could collect if it sold the rights to operate the lottery to an outside company, according to confidential Wall Street analyses.

Moreover, to make the venture more attractive and command a higher price from an outside company, California might have to relax its gambling laws and allow a major expansion of the lottery — meaning, some critics say, that Schwarzenegger would be balancing the budget on the backs of the many poor people who avidly buy tickets.

With California facing a $14.5 billion shortfall that threatens to force the early release of tens of thousands inmates and close parks, legislative leaders are considering Schwarzenegger's proposal to lease the lottery to the highest bidder for what he says could be an eye-popping $37 billion — half up front, the rest presumably in fixed annual installments.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_re_us/schwarzenegger_lottery

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I'd like to know who is behind this....

Wasn't Phil Gramm pushing lottery privatization in Texas?

[KamaAina]

1. Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it

Louisiana (surprise!) had a similar scheme in the 19th century. The ensuing corruption was the main reason all lotteries were banned in the U.S. for so long.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Lottery

The Louisiana State Lottery Company was a private corporation that in the mid-19th century ran the Louisiana lottery. It was for a time the only legal lottery in the United States, and for much of that time had a very foul reputation as a swindle of the state and citizens and a repository of corruption.

The company, initially a syndicate from New York was chartered on August 11, 1868 by the Louisiana General Assembly with a 25 year charter and exchange gave the State 40 000 USD a year. With the passage of the charter, all other organized gambling was made illegal. This start almost immediately gave it a bad reputation as having bribed the legislators into a corrupt deal, especially at a time when other states were viewing lotteries and gambling with suspicion....

In 1890, three years before the charter's expiration, the company bribed the legislature into passing an act to write them into the constitution (thus requiring a successful supermajority of both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature and referendum) by offering to give the state 500 000 USD per year....

In 1890 the United States Congress banned the interstate transportation of lottery tickets and lottery advertisements, which composed 90% of the companies revenue. The Supreme Court of the United States upheld this statute in 1892.

[mac2]

2. Thanks for this informative post

Money brings bribery. I heard most businesses don't want to do business in LA because their government is so corrupt and their laws still different then the rest of the US. More like old Emperial France than democratic US.

[KamaAina]

3. These days, the differences are relatively minor

The main difference between civil law, as opposed to the common law prevailing elsewhere in the U.S., is in the way corporations are set up. (Tulane Law does, however, offer a course in "American law" for those students who might someday wish to practice outside La.)

Corruption? Yeah, they've got it -- but so do Chicago, New Jersey, and lots of other places with more robust economies. Also note that the La. lottery corporation was actually incorporated in N.Y.

[mac2]

5. Ya a Mafia

[Javaman]

4. Here is the best idea for the lottery and voting....

anyone who votes has a chance to win a million bucks. :)

[mac2]

6. Could they steal our vote win with a computer too?

[Javaman]

7. Sure why not! LOL nt

[Cleita]

8. Hmm, that could work.

On the lottery idea, I always thought that people who pay taxes should have a chance at a lottery run by the IRS. It might take some of the sting out of paying taxes, if for instance there was a million dollar winner every year selected randomly from that year's tax returns. :-)

[happygoluckytoyou]

9. SELL THE LOTTERY.......I'LL NEVER BUY AGAIN

AS SIMPLE AS THIS..... I BUY TO SUPPORT THE STATE....NOT BECAUSE I THINK THE $MILLION$ IS MINE

SOMEDAY I MAY WIN SOMETHING BUT IT IS A CALIFORNIA THING....

......THE DAY IT IS SOLD TO A PRIVATE COMPANY (READ BULLSHIT PROFIT HUNGRY CORPORATION) YOU CAN KISS MY DOLLARS GOODBYE....

...................AND I DON'T MIND SHARING THAT OPINION TO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY (OK... THATS $3)

[OnionPatch]

14. Same here. No way.

This is disgusting. Must everything on Earth be used for mega-profits for big corporations?

[Journeyman]

10. Of course, to get this money, Scwarzenegger will have to pick the correct 6 numbers. . .

but what the hey, let's take a chance on the "new kid" -- how much worse can he be than Gray Davis?

Oy. . . this state makes my head hurt somedays. . .

To think, we got rid of Davis because his budget shortfall -- by Arnold Schwarznegger's own reckoning -- was an "astounding" $6 to $10 billion.


Said Schwarznegger on the eve of his inauguration:

"We don't really know what the current operating deficit it is," Schwarzenegger said. He explained that estimates of the budget's deficit have ranged during the campaign from $6 billion to $10 billion.


http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/08/recall.main/index.html

[fob]

11. "OPEN DA BOOKS" was ahnuld's bullshit war cry when they were

chasing Gray Davis out of office. ahnuld said the solution was simple, "just open da books". Apparently not understanding the Budget is a public document available on line and if he really thought the solution was so readily attainable by a simple perusal of the damn thing, he should have done so and brought it to the ELECTED Governor's attention.

Well, ahnuld, FOB says to you, "OPEN DA BOOKS, only open dem wider because you've got us in an even bigger hole now!" Actually, open da books of Enron and get our $35 billion back they stole and the problem is solved and you don't have to privatize the effing lottery you asshole.

[antigop]

12. Here is the info on Phil Gramm and the Texas lottery

Is Gramm behind the CA privatization effort?

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/02/14/14lottery.html

The first mention of selling the state lottery came six months ago during a phone conversation between two old friends talking about a reunion.

Phil Wilson, Gov. Rick Perry's deputy chief of staff, was asking his former boss, Phil Gramm, a retired Republican U.S. senator turned investment banker, what he was working on nowadays.

Selling lotteries, he said.

That casual conversation and an unsolicited call from a competing investment firm led to two separate pitches from investment bankers to Wilson in the fall and follow-up meetings from the same firms over the past two weeks.

UBS, where Gramm is vice chairman, and Morgan Stanley may be front-runners in helping the governor's office explore the sale of the Texas Lottery, but other firms are calling now that Perry, in his State of the State speech, urged the Legislature to sell it to establish trust funds for cancer research and health care subsidies for uninsured Texans.

[xchrom]

13. of course he COULD have raised taxes on the richest californians --

but no -- privatizing a cali institution is better? --:eyes: