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| The transfer of wealth never looked so diabolical. |
I.
They once asked JP Rockefeller just how much fucking money did he need anyway? His answer: Just a little bit more.
II.
When I ran around with OWS I learned that I myself was a part of the top wealthy 4%. I make under $40,000 a year and I still fell in the top 4%! That is of course compared to the entire world. Which, apparently, is one ramen noodle soup away from dropping over dead.
You can throw your annual salary into this website to see where you land. globalrichlistDOTcom. Like Rockefeller, I always think I need just a little bit more.
III.
People who have never been rich assume that rich means infinite money, when it really just means more money and a higher level of consumption. But if you are buying things to fill that empty pit in your heart, no amount will suffice. Not even a lottery pile.
More money, spent with the same attitude, the one that’s seeking an identity and a holy inner stressless peace by buying things, isn’t going to kill that poverty feeling. When you live so precisely at your means that $50 a month makes a difference, no amount of money is going to help you; you’re just going to buy more and bigger houses to starve in.
IV.
I blame King James I personally. Apparently he started a lottery to help the fledgling Jamestown Colonists. The idea took root in the new country and by the time the colonists told the king to go fuck himself there were 164 “known” colonial lotteries funding just about every government task you could think of. Put that in your tea and drink it. Sure, it helped the more puritanical sleep soundly knowing they were not actually gambling but rather participating in a voluntary tax. My ancestor tried a variation of this defense. He was the guy chained in the stocks who said he wasn’t butt fucking sheep per say but merely participating in some harmless “voluntary” cross breeding. Sadly, they weren’t persuaded- but- enough about my family tree.
V.
Now wait just a minute N., a tax is a mandatory or compulsory payment, and playing the lottery is voluntary, so lottery revenue cannot be a tax you jack-hole.
You’re confusing the purchase of a product with the payment of the tax on the product. True, the purchase of a lottery ticket is voluntary, but the tax portion of the ticket price is not, just as a sales or excise tax is compulsory on a voluntary purchase of alcohol, clothing or books. The voluntary nature of the purchase does not make the tax any less of a tax. Using your rationale, we’d have to say that because the purchase of a dildo is voluntary, the sales tax on the dildo is not really a tax. Just try to buy a $20 dildo and hand the cashier a $20 bill, but refuse to pay the $1.40 (.07%) sales tax and leave the store waving dildo in hand. “I’m not funding anymore government abortions with my $1.40! Its going to chic-fil-a instead!!”
The only difference between the lottery tax and sales or excise taxes is that the lottery tax is built into the price of the ticket, rather than reported separately.
Fuck off N. Here is YOUR missed connection. It’s a recreational activity. If you can’t afford it, don’t play. Otherwise quit the bitching.
This argument seems to suggest that the lottery is akin to a sort of user fee, or a charge paid to the government for a specific service, by the people who use that service. Lotteries are a government enterprise and a source of tax revenue, and must be evaluated as such.
If the governing body’s intent was simply to meet the needs of a person who paid for a service or product, the payment is probably a fee rather than a tax (a toll on a bridge for example). However, if the intent was to raise revenues to benefit the community at large, then the payment is a tax. The lottery clearly falls into the latter category since legislators create lotteries to raise money for projects that (supposedly) benefit the community at large.
And the tax burden is shifting from the wealthy and property owners to lottery players. That is to say, the poor. And you line up at the counters to do it.
Where do you think that mega millions jackpot came from? Answer: Out of the pockets of poor people. State lotteries posted more than $53 billion in ticket sales in 2006 (the last year for which I found data). And 99.999% of those ticket buyers, which includes you, are losers. Don’t take that personally. It just means you didn’t win. So quit waving your dildo at me.
Rich people usually don’t play the lottery, the poor do, working class, the disabled and welfare recipients. Hence, the lottery can be viewed as a tax on the poor, which is redistributed to people who already have jobs. Who, by the way, will give half of that money back in the form of taxes. Thats a huge transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top.
That’s also called a racket where I come from. The media’s the barker, and we’re the rubes.
I’m just playing a fantasy. I know I won’t win, I just like being a part of something plus the revenue goes toward education and...
Yep. Its a tax on the stupid.
N.
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