Why do our politicians want a state lottery when there are better ways to tax the stupid?

Look at what other lottery states put up with. First, North Carolina would have to contract with an out-of-state company to run a lottery. This company would get its cut of lottery revenue.

Then, the state would have to advertise the lottery, exaggerating people’s chances of winning so greatly they’d make Ed “You May Already Be a Winner!” McMahon blush. Those ads would target only those least likely to know their odds of winning are about the same as being struck by lightning twice the day the illegal slush-fund legislators resign. Advertising heavily drains lottery revenue.

Finally, there’s “lottery fatigue.” That occurs when the novelty wears off for some people and the lack of winning grates on others. Ticket sales for the first group drop off dramatically. The others, now hooked on gambling, find online gaming and other illegal, quicker-payoff forms. Lottery fatigue makes the state expend greater police resources and resort to even more frequent advertising whoppers to keep people in line.

Frankly, trying to bail out the state’s education system with an “education lottery” is like trying to bail with a rusty colander. You waste a lot of effort with the leaky thing, and the holes keep getting bigger.

Legislators in lottery states tend to reallocate education funds replaced by lottery proceeds, so when lottery fatigue sets in, suddenly their states have budget “shortfalls” in education and other areas too. That’s when state leaders decide to chuck their lotteries. Just kidding! No, that’s when they start passing tax increases.

In the long run, lottery states wind up with lower per-capita spending on education than states without lotteries. Lottery revenue, meanwhile, hovers around a mere third of total sales. That’s just plain inefficient. If the good people in power here want to exploit the stupid for school funds, there surely are better ways.

Stupid people tend to self-identify. TV executives base entire shows on that fact, and people accept their invitations to be on “Jerry Springer” or volunteer to humiliate themselves on “Blind Date” and their families on “Nanny 911.” North Carolina could easily exploit that trait.

For example, North Carolina could put a line on the tax form: “Stupid? __Yes __No.” Further down the form would state, “If you checked ‘Yes’ on line x, add” say, $200.

North Carolina could also tax certain stupid products. The possibilities are endless — heck, the cigarette tax works even though smokes carry a surgeon general’s warning, too. So it wouldn’t even hurt to put out labels saying, “NC Dept. of Revenue Warning: Item subject to the Stupidity Tax for Education.”

How about “education e-mails” based on well-known yet still successful Internet scams? One might begin “HELLO IM TEH SECRETARY OF REVENUE” and for a small fee promise financial help (to North Carolina). Another might “Increase your bust” — pay it and you’ll go bust quicker. How about “Help Ed in NC” — you see, “Ed” struggles to live and if “everyone who receives this e-mail only sent $1….” Granted, some stupid people here don’t have e-mail, but any missed revenue from them would be compensated for by others’ out-of-state stupid relatives.

And those are just a few ideas. Our politicians’ idea of taxing the stupid is really not bad in concept — there’s one group who’d never complain — but a lottery is absolutely the most inefficient way to do it.

Then again, inefficiency might be the lottery’s strength. An efficient plan to improve education by exploiting the stupid might eventually destroy itself, as it slowly cuts off the flow of exploitable people. A method that leaks funds for education about as fast as it takes it in could reach a happy medium, however, balancing schools’ need for funds with the lottery’s need for people with no practical ability in math.

Jon Sanders is assistant editor of Carolina Journal.