• TheLepidopterists [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    I heard somewhere, I wanna say the-podcast that the idea that lotteries fund schools isn't even true.

    Like, if property tax generated X dollars for local schools, and then a lottery was introduced that produced Y dollars, instead of schools now getting X+Y dollars, they still get X and you either give Y amount of dollars from the budget to something we don't want to say the lottery is funding, like police budgets or something, since the dollars are all fungible, or you reduce property taxes by Y dollars.

    Meaning that generally, what it actually does, rather than providing a new revenue stream for your kid's school, is move the tax burden from the rich to the poor.