Scratching the lottery

LET THE Mashpee Wampanoags have their casino.

Then the state should kill the lottery.

This Indian tribe is reportedly trying to make a deal with Middleborough, which would rather consider killing trees for barren asphalt and a palace of booze and bamboozlement than approve a tax override to pay for public services. I say let the two parties marry, let the gamblers be their children, and let the casino pay whatever in income and sales taxes to the town and state.

This beats the abject addiction of the state to the lottery.

This addiction reached ridiculous depths when state treasurer Timothy Cahill claimed that this week's $40 million Star Spangled Sweepstakes was "far from a failure," as it was indeed failing. It needed sales of 2 million $20 tickets to break even, but only 1.35 million tickets were sold. The state promised a full payout anyway.

"We were really trying to hit a home run," Cahill told the Globe's Bruce Mohl, who reported that Cahill was under pressure to swing for the fences "from lawmakers to increase revenue before the fiscal year ends June 30." In an earlier story, Mohl wrote, "Lottery officials have struggled this year to keep sales growing and keep revenues flowing to cities and towns. Last year, the lottery had its best year ever, with sales of $4.52 billion. State legislators set a target of a 2 percent increase this year, but as of yesterday sales were off 1.66 percent, or about $73 million, from last year's pace."

The reason given by lottery officials was "high gas prices, a dearth of large Mega Millions jackpots, and competition from casino and Internet gambling."

This is simply nuts. It is also a social crime. As Massachusetts towns, many of them middle class or wealthy, vote down overrides across the state total ing $60 million this year, lotteries try to make up for their stinginess on the backs of the poor and working class.

The latest evidence of this comes from a Tax Foundation report released this week that warned of the growing reliance by the states on lottery revenues. In 2005, Americans spent $52 billion on lotteries, of which $15 billion went to the states. The average American spent $177 playing the lottery, more than the average spent on reading materials. Massachusetts is fifth in the nation in per-capital lottery spending at $700.

But instead of just raising taxes and closing tax loopholes by $4.5 billion, Massachusetts is a sad national model of people in high places scratching their heads to get the lowest of income to scratch tickets to pay for vital services for everyone. Study after study shows that low-income households spend a larger proportion of their earnings on lotteries than wealthier households. A study released last month by the National Center for Policy Analysis said that the lowest-earning households spend 10.8 percent of their income on gambling, compared with 0.7 percent of the highest-earning households.

States often justify lotteries by saying that it's OK, since many of the services come back to the poor and working poor. But the National Center for Policy Analysis report cited research that found that the Georgia lottery was a $161 net loss for the lowest-income households while wealthier families experienced a net gain of $114. Citing research in Texas, the report said the lottery "is more regressive than virtually any other tax, including the sales tax, payroll taxes, or personal property taxes."

The Tax Foundation report seconded that by saying that the lottery, "when subjected to the tests of sound tax policy, it fails."

I'm not all that thrilled about casinos either, but since people do like to gamble, the best middle ground is to make it more of a choice to travel to than the state-sponsored sickness to addict people, especially the poor, on false dreams. Killing the lottery and asking wealthier state residents and corporations to pay a more fair share in taxes is of course akin to asking politicians to walk up to the guillotine. Governor Deval Patrick got into office promising to find ways to cut property taxes.

The Tax Foundation report says that if the states found a way out of the lottery, "they would improve their tax systems by increasing accountability, transparency, and economic neutrality, as well as decreasing regressivity. Legislators would find that they truly do not need the revenue raised by lotteries; they would either get by without it or raise it through explicit taxation enacted legislatively -- and honestly."

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.