As MoveOn.org continues to send out mass e-mails with the “Huge News” that Bill Halter will challenge Blanche Lincoln for the Senate seat in Arkansas, it would behoove us little citizen folks to ask some critical questions before we whip out our checkbooks.
Don’t get me wrong, I love primaries, and I think little-d democracy is a good thing. And really now, a doorknob would have a more progressive political record than Blanche Lincoln. But as MoveOn.org issues a blanket statement without documentation that “Bill Halter has a progressive record as lieutenant governor,” and then in the next sentence asks American progressives to cough up half a million dollars for Halter, let’s hover over Halter for a little bit first. I mean, really, haven’t we learned anything about the hard sell from those used car salesmen?
Maybe MoveOn.org is right. Maybe Bill Halter is an amazing progressive. But here’s a particular question I have about Bill Halter: is opening up a state lottery to fill gaps in education funding a progressive act? That’s what Bill Halter actively advocated in 2008. The plan: institute a state lottery, with credulous people playing the game, money occasionally going toward big prizes, much more money going for administrative costs and to pay contractors to run the thing, and then leftover money going toward education. A lottery is essentially a regressive tax, paid by people who are poor enough to be desperate for money and poorly educated enough to not realize that the chance they’ll win anything significant from the lottery is next to nil. A lottery is also a cowardly political solution by politicians to fund programs when they don’t want to use the word “tax.” A tax is more efficient than a lottery. A tax is less dependent upon the poor and undereducated people who have less money to spare as it is. A tax is a literally more progressive means for funding a state’s needs, needs like public education.
So help me puzzle through this: if Bill Halter is such a progressive, then why did he push for a regressive strategy to fund education? Is it because the people of Arkansas are so profoundly stupid that they’d never agree to anything else? Is it because Bill Halter sought the easier, regressive road to funding for education? Or is there something I just don’t understand about education and lotteries in Arkansas that would make sense out of the decision to institute a government gambling system to take advantage of dupes?
I agree that this lottery scheme – a casino for education – reflects poorly on Halter. There may be some more positive things that Bill Halter eventually reveals about himself, but for now, those are hidden, and liberals are being asked to accept on faith that Halter will reflect their values.
What MoveOn and these other organizations don’t seem to understand is that American liberals right now feel betrayed by the Democratic Party as a whole. The Democrats made us a whole bunch of promises that they did not keep. So, when they bring some new, supposedly liberal candidate out, it’s not just enough to say “trust us, he’s liberal”. They’ve got to PROVE IT.
The track record of Democrats in Arkansas politics is too corrupt and dishonest to accept at face value.
You could have left out “in Arkansas” in your final sentence and it would be just as true.
i feel betrayed by the entire corporate take-over and don’t feel that anything of substance will change unless we somehow remove this blight from our democracy. We’re running out of time like the polar bears in the Arctic, so if it isn’t accomplished during Obama’s administration, i believe we’re going down hard.
goverment can’t do anything right, so why these politicians line up for “vice taxes” is kind of funny. how many state and multi-state gambling operations are we running in this country? maybe they’re not doing this right either, but, that isn’t stopping them from trying some more.
i know what you’re thinking, DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH. we can’t hold our breathe long enough to make them feel the pain that we would feel in a matter of days, weeks or a month of sundays. did someone say violent revolution? now that would be classy warfare. viva the revolution! well, not yet. 25% unemployment and the collapse of our entitlement (safety net) programs will probably get us there and that’s coming at us quickly. 12/21/2012? that’s the most recent guess and i’m thinking it’s not such an absurd notion after all.
think we could pay for everything if we just tax everything that the people use as a crutch?
do rich folks have crutches? every time we try to tax them they jump so high that jets streams are seen coming off their feet. no crutches. try to get them to pay for anything and it’s class warfare. they take their marbles and go home.
how about an all out boycott, absolutely shut down the entire economy, see how long it takes for corporate america to realize that without the working class their lifestyle will be in jeopardy.
I’m no fan of Blanche, who is essentially a Republican, but this guy Halter was so single minded about this lottery deal, you almost have to suspect he had a payoff angle in it of some sort. And he’s so proud of how he instituted this program that pays for middle class kids to go to college on the backs of the poor and others who are addicted to gambling such that they spend their grocery and rent money on lottery tickets, just makes me absolutely sick. I think he would just be another side of the same coin, voting for more bailouts for bankers and insurance companies and to hell with the people.