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EDUCATION LOTTERY TO HELP FIGHT RECESSION ANNOUNCES "INSTANT TAX REBATE" SCRATCH-OFF
RALEIGH - The North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL) is going to help keep the economy from going into a recession. The North Carolina Education Lottery is introducing a new “INSTANT TAX REBATE” scratch-off game in conjunction with the issuing of “Tax Rebate” checks from the federal government.
The federal tax rebates in North Carolina will total billions of dollars and we need to insure that money is not wasted on frivolous spending but goes to supporting education. Since education is the ultimate economic development tool, this will spur the economy in North Carolina and help keep the country out of a recession.
This instant scratch-off ticket will have over $350 million in total cash prizes, which is a spectacular average of over $100 prize payout per household!
If we can convince half of the households in North Carolina to spend half their federal tax rebate on this game we estimate that the NCEL will gross over $1 billion. If the federal government would do the right thing and give a rebate to poor people and lower income families, who don’t pay taxes, it would make our job easier as they are our target demographic (we also target mathematical illiterates and people not in full possession of their senses). If this would happen the Sky’s the limit for potential sales!
The $300 million “INSTANT TAX REBATE” game is a $10 ticket with top prizes of $10 million. Players who scratch their way to win the $10 million prizes will be paid in installments of $500,000 over 20 years. There are also over 500,000 prizes between $50 and $500 and over 5,000 prizes from $1,000 to $50,000.
These tickets will be available in stores and check cashing centers when government tax rebate checks start arriving in lottery ticket consumers mailboxes!
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THIS IS A PARODY!
Look at the way 3 of the major media outlets covered the Auditor’s report of campaign use by the offices of Richard Moore and Bev Perdue:
N&O: "Perdue, Moore used offices for campaigns"
Charlotte Observer: "Auditor finds against Perdue, Moore"
WRAL.com: "Moore rips audit critical of computer use"
Interesting that N&O and Charlotte articles are the same text, same byline, except with different headlines. The N&O gives top billing on its website to the article with pictures of both candidates. WRAL, conversely, gives Richard Moore front billing with a picture of just him and the fact that he finds the report flawed. Favoritism by WRAL editors? I think so.
From Arnold Kling:
Over the past eight weeks, I have been spending a lot of time with my father, who has developed some acute medical problems. For the most part, my focus is day-to-day (or hour-to-hour) on the issues and stresses that arise.
But I have also come around to some different points of view about our health care system. I no longer think of Medicare and health care regulation as inefficient. I now think of them as pure evil.
Read the whole thing.
-Max Borders
The N&O has this article on the newly completed I-795 between Wilson and Goldsboro.
Two thoughts from this:
1. There’s an I-795??? Does this just not prove the point that transportation funding is royally screwed up in NC when we’ve got Interstate roads between two small-medium eastern NC towns, yet I-85, I-40, I-540, I-485 and all the other metropolitan areas suffer in congestion.
The Eastern NC domination of politicians (Hunt, Easley, Basnight, and Rand) have so bastardized the Highway Trust Fund that we’re building loops around Wilson, Wilmington and Fayetteville before we finish loops around Greensboro, Charlotte and Raleigh.
2. Another botched paving job? Really? You’d think after the I-40 fiasco they’d try to not let that type of thing happen again.
It’s time for serious reform of DOT. Blow it up and start over — it’s just not serving the citizens of NC any longer. If this was a parliamentary system and we could hold a "no confidence" vote, I don’t know that anyone would vote to sustain it. However, I’m doubtful anything will happen as long as the leadership in the Senate remains and until we get a governor from west of I-95.
Give state employees a percentage of every dollar they save taxpayers — relative to a reasonable baseline.
Everyone can agree that state government wastes money. Rewarding government employees to streamline processes and save taxpayer resources (while improving quality, of course) seems like a no-brainer. If businesses do it successfully, why can’t governments? Bureaucrats can be entrepreneurial.
Here’s the other thing: if a group of people has a positive incentive to create internal efficiencies and reforms, they’re going to look over each other’s shoulders. That’s built in transparency. That’s where we need it. You could have every major N.C. Department adopt such an initiative and not only streamline the orgs, but save taxpayer dollars, and increase accountability. Incentives matter.
-Max Borders
Jeff Bennett, a Julian Simon fellow at PERC, took two interesting pictures of a display at the Smithsonian Institution. Now, he’s taking bets on when those displays will be taken down given the ‘climate’ of global warming alarmism. Check ‘em:
Now, either these old displays are old news and no longer accepted science (the truth is, no one knows the degree to which climate change is due to natural variability), or they’re solid as oak. Either way, when the nation’s premier nature museum is telling us and our kids that we’re in an ice age (and that warming may be due to our coming out of said ice age), we’d better reevaluate something.
My bet? I’m thinking they’ll come out by the time we have a new president.
-Max Borders
To continue on the sunshine in government theme of the week, the Charlotte Observer has a compiled a database to search the pay of NC government employees.
Check it out here.
The $146 billion economic "stimulus" bill passed the US House of Representatives earlier today 385-35. The only NC Congressman to vote against it was Rep. Howard Coble (R) who had concerns about the impact of the bill on the deficit (and rightly so).
The bill now heads to the Senate where it will be interesting to see if the Senators attempt to change it despite threats of a Presidential veto.
Keep an eye on NC Sens. Dole and Burr on the proposed amendments and see if they hold with the President and House’s position.
Also keep an eye on whether the Democratic leadership revises its earlier thwarted attempts to increase taxes on domestic energy production to subsidize renewable energy. Lots of goodies and favors to be thrown around, it’ll be interesting to see just how clean this bill can make it out of the Senate.
For political-junkies-cum-number-crunchers: the NCPI. (House, Senate)
As many of North Carolina’s citizens consider whether to run for the state Legislature this year, one of the first questions they ask is whether they have a good possibility of winning. Candidates and political consultants pore over data from past races and voter registration, trying to answer that question. This year, the Civitas Institute is pleased to bring another tool to the table: the North Carolina Partisan Index (NCPI).
Kinda makes me wish I took stats in school. (Nah.)
-Max borders
