Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Don't rob my lottery!


My mom sent along this article about Schwarzenegger's unforeseen difficulties in borrowing against future lottery revenues, don't underestimate the impact of public choice vis a vis the tribes like the article did. I loved the mention of Independent Lottery Research; division of labor, indeed. ILR states the only other topic people have more of a propensity to speak about, ahead of the lottery, is sex. The article also says that people would rather have their taxes raised instead of seeing Arnold's plan go through, though that's a generous reading of the statistics presented a few lines later.

California politics tend to be more enjoyable than most; thanks to direct democracy, voters have hamstrung the ability of the state to generate revenue from property taxes (easily the #1 source of revenue for most states), so the hoops California politicians have to jump through can be humorous.

1 comment:

Justin M Ross said...

It is quite reasonable for the voters to hamstring the state's ability to generate revenue via the property tax. It is the most hated tax, as it can "tax you out of your home" and in California there is no link between the property taxes and the local public goods that you might enjoy (Thanks to the 1976 CA Supreme Court).