It appears Gov. Siegelman is resorting to a tactic from his past. During his first run for the state’s highest office, candidate Siegelman had one answer no matter what question was asked. That answer was “lottery.”
Four years later, Gov. Siegelman is again stumping the state promoting a state-sponsored lottery as the silver bullet that will cure Alabama’s economic woes.
In ways that only politicians can, the governor ignores the fact that Alabama voters soundly defeated his lottery proposal. That was only three years ago. He ignores the fact that after telling Alabama voters there was “no Plan B” if the lottery failed, he found a “Plan B” almost immediately.
Since helping defeat state-sponsored lottery gambling, Baptists have used moral persuasion to urge increased support for education in Alabama. In 2000, Baptists in annual meeting adopted a resolution urging tax reform. On the first day of this year’s legislative session, Alabama Baptist leaders joined leaders of Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and others at a news conference on the steps of the state capitol calling for “tax fairness” in our state. Both were big steps for Baptists.
In November, Baptists were among those who supported the “Rainy Day” constitutional amendment designed to prevent future proration in education. Baptists thought they were working with the governor to help education. Baptists believe in public education and support public education.
Yet, Gov. Siegelman says we have done nothing to help education since defeating his lottery proposal.
Evidently Gov. Siegelman is trying to make Baptists and other religious people in Alabama the scapegoats for education’s economic woes.
Playing the “blame game” is bad politics. Besides, the charge simply is untrue.
Judging from the experience of other states, state-sponsored lottery gambling would be of little value anyway.
Consider Missouri, a wide-open gambling state. By constitutional requirement, all state income from bingo, state lottery and casinos must go to education in that state. Yet Missouri had a shortfall in state income for education several times that of Alabama.
Higher education leaders in Alabama wailed loudly when they experienced a 6.2 percent shortfall in the 2001 budget from state income. They should have. Alabama needs more funds for education at every level. But the shortfall in Missouri’s higher education budget for 2002 is more than three times that amount.
According to a spokesman for Missouri’s Department of Higher Education, that section of the state budget experienced three withholdings in the course of the budget year that ended June 30, 2002. The total of the withholdings was 19 per-cent — $286 million. Alabama withheld less than that from elementary and secondary and higher education combined.
Going into the 2003 budget year, Missouri’s Department of Higher Education experienced a 10 percent reduction in its core budget. Additional withholdings are anticipated, and the outlook for the 2004 budget is described as “bleak.”
By contrast, Alabama’s Department of Education will have an increase of $132 million in its 2003 budget when compared to the 2002 budget — $1.148 million for 2003 and $1.116 million for 2002. The “Rainy Day” fund makes withholdings unlikely.
Even though Missouri’s population total is more than 25 percent greater than Alabama’s, the Department of Higher Education budget is about 10 percent more than Alabama’s for 2003.
Obviously, gambling money is not doing great things for higher education in Missouri. But the impression is widely spread that state residents “fixed” the problems with education by channeling the gambling money into the schools. The truth is that gambling money does not solve education’s economic problems. It has not in Missouri, and it will not in Alabama.
Alabama State Superintendent of Education Ed Richardson has publicly rejected Gov. Siegelman’s latest lottery proposal. Hopefully others will do the same. If the idea gets a cold reception, perhaps the governor will get the message and abandon his state-sponsored gambling campaign once and for all.
This state does not need another round of acrimonious debate and wasted resources over an idea that voters trounced three years ago. Surely Gov. Siegelman can offer better leadership than that.
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