How to Divide a Poor Man from His Money

   And, he proved the point.
   I was discussing gambling with him. I told him how Utah is but one of two states that does not allow any form of gambling, and of how it is one of only six states that does not have a lottery. Did I tell him how of families making $13,000 or less spend $645 a year on lottery tickets? I told him how gambling is considered, by some, to be the most insidious of taxes upon the poor.
   The difference between a state lottery and other sin taxes, is that alcohol drinking and tobacco use already exist when you set a tax on them. The tax raises the cost, in hopes it will discourage use. But, state lotteries? They are the creation of a harmful activity. They don't just tax an existing use, they create a use. So, whereas the other sin taxes might discourage harmful activities, state lotteries encourage them.
   Lotteries as the creation of a harmful activity? Indeed, they build it, make it, establish it -- and glorify it.
   I told him how those who favor gambling argue lotteries are a windfall for education. What with Utah ranking 51st in education funding per student among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, why would we not use this tax resource to alleviate our problems?
   Did I tell him some consider gambling a disease? Surely, we know it is an addiction, but if it be a disease as well, why would government ever be involved in the creation of a harmful activity? Why would government ever encourage something that is harmful to its people?
   Only too late, as the discussion was ending, did I remember he had told me how he supposed he had won a lottery, but not been able to collect. He jarred me to that memory by saying, "I only did it out of desperation," and I thought of how he had told me he once starved for food, for having lack of money. Had gambling came along in the guise of something that could deliver him from his poverty?
   As I said, he proved the point. The poor turn to gambling. It is they, perhaps more than any, who are damaged by this insidious vice called lotteries. Bless the government wise enough not to harm its people with this vice. There are only six, and Utah is fortunate to be one of them.