In a land of private enterprise and capitalism a Bankrate.com study reveals 3 in 10 low income Americans spend an inordinate amount of money on lottery tickets ($412/annually compared to $105/year for high-income households). 

An authority on the subject said: “Lotteries have become an alternative mechanism of social mobility—a way of achieving financial success in an economy that’s increasingly bereft of those opportunities.  There’s an understandable belief that the economy is rigged and your best chance of making it out and getting rich is through the lottery, not through your job or savings.”

Americans spent $80.3 billion on lotteries in fiscal year 2017, up from $57.4 billion in 2006, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries.

Aside from lottery winnings where does the lottery money go?  Thirty percent of all lottery sales are ultimately directed to public programs within the state of residence, ranging from education to health care to environmental protection, according to La Fleur’s, a lottery trade publication. Against the State: An ... Rockwell Jr., Llewelly... Best Price: $5.02 Buy New $5.52 (as of 11:35 UTC - Details)

Government breeds gamblers via lottery tickets instead of encouraging investments to growth real wealth (gambling being defined as pure chance versus investments which involve value being added to something before it is sold). 

The irony of lottery ticket money is that it is government operated and some people receive cash welfare assistance that is being returned to the States via purchase of lottery tickets.  Then the double irony: if the lottery ticket buyer is on welfare and they win big, the State steps in and takes away their winnings to repay government for past welfare payments.  So, in other words, there was no way some welfare recipients could ever win.   

A majority of Americans surveyed on this topic say welfare recipients should be banned from buying lottery tickets.  However, a court ruled if the form of welfare was a job, then the money spent on lottery tickets was earned and not welfare per se.

Some States choose to monitor lottery payouts and match them up with lists of welfare recipients.  For example, Michigan ended welfare benefits for more than 800 lottery winners. 

New York State was reported to have seized $20 million in lottery prizes awarded in 2013 from people on public assistance.   New York takes 50% of the winner’s payout as compensation for past welfare payments.  

What the State lottery agencies aren’t saying is that the ticket buyer may have “invested” let’s say, a couple thousand dollars in lottery tickets over a period of five years. Then let’s say the ticket buyer wins $10,000 and the State activates a recovery of welfare funds when winnings exceed $500.  If the welfare recipient has received over $10,000 of public assistance then the net winnings are zero.  So essentially the lottery ticket buyer bought $2000 of tickets and had $10,000 of winnings returned in compensation for past welfare payments received, some which was in the form of cash.  To be fair, one might think the $2000 of lottery ticket purchases should be deducted from the earnings since that money already returned to the State with the ticket purchases. 

Furthermore, according to the IRS lottery ticket jackpots over $600 are subject to a minimum 25% federal tax of any prize (less the wager) over $5000.

Regardless, this all ends up to be more public welfare hijinks.  Giving some people on the public dole opportunity to buy lottery tickets with welfare dollars under the illusionary promise they can win, when they can’t. 

In third world countries there are lending programs where the very poor are lent money to start a small business.  Some get a small business stand and sell soda pop.  Others sell family-made or indigenously made products like pottery, leather goods, whatever.  This is called microlending.  The very poor get a taste of entrepreneurship and a way to bootstrap themselves up. 

But in America, money, food, health care, housing allowances and even cells phones are just given away.  Some States require work for welfare but that can take mothers away from their kids.  The loss of the nuclear family with the rise of women in the workplace certainly cheats kids of the kind of supervision they need to grow up.

None of this should be a surprise.  Public schools only teach kids to become consumers, not entrepreneurs.  In the 5^th grade my son’s school classmates were asked to hold up a sign what they wanted to be when they grew up.  All of the boys except my son wanted to enter the military, become a law enforcement officer or a fire fighter.  In other words, all wanted to work for government and none wanted to start their own enterprise. 

My son held up his sign – it said “inventor.”  The school masters should have been shamed for not encouraging kids to start their own businesses but they too chose to live off tax money. 

And we wonder where the rise of socialism a la Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has sprung from?   

Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, — the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.” No Treason; The Consti... Spooner, Lysander Best Price: $7.28 Buy New $5.99 (as of 06:20 UTC - Details)

Jefferson’s statement was later (1986) condensed to say: “Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

The Constitution guarantees Americans the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  It doesn’t guarantee happiness, which would be the socialist position.  Guaranteed income is now being considered as part of the progressive movement. 

It was Winston Churchill who once said: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of its blessings.  The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” —House of Commons, 22 October 1945. 

My guess is, not a single college student in the U.S. outside of Hillsdale College in Michigan was ever required to read what Churchill said.  How do you breed capitalism and free enterprise if it isn’t taught?  Teachers by virtue of the fact they live off of tax money and never put their money at risk to build independent wealth are obviously in no position to teach the American way of life.