Bill is part of a trend to vilify the poor
First there was the bill to stop poor people from buying sodas or snacks.
Now there’s a bill that would strip them of public assistance if they happen to win some lottery money.
Back in January state Rep. Sheila Butts, a Republican, introduced a bill that would ban people from using food stamps to buy junk food. She ultimately withdrew it. But GOP lawmakers apparently aren’t done with their favorite obsession — the poor. They recently passed a House bill that would require the names of lottery winners to be crosschecked with state and federal public assistance programs.
Anyone winning $5,000 or more would lose their public assistance — a move that state Rep. Dan Howell said would help the state ferret out how much state funding was being lost due to those winnings not being reported.
But for state Rep. William Lamberth, the bill wasn’t about preventing fraud as much as it was about policing poor people’s behavior. He said that they shouldn’t be playing the lottery anyway; that they should be spending their money on food and medicine, not on something as “ridiculous and silly” as the lottery.
On some measures, Lamberth is right.
Indeed, poor people spend a disproportionate amount of their income on the lottery — and studies show that one of the major areas they spend it on are the instant scratch-off games with top prizes that range from $500 to $5 million. One study estimates that poor people spend at least 9 percent of their income on lottery tickets because they, like many non-poor people, buy into the hype of instant wealth.
Also, besides lottery tickets being a de facto tax on poor people, there’s also the argument to be made that people receiving taxpayer’s money to survive on shouldn’t turn around and use it to gamble.
There’s also the argument to be made that people receiving taxpayer’s money to survive on shouldn’t turn around and use it to gamble.
Nonetheless this bill, like Butt’s bill, smacks of the demonization of poor people that seems to be part of the GOP mindset.
They are the kinds of bills that are concocted by those who only see the symptom and not the cause; who don’t want to address the structural issues of poverty that compel many poor people to trust their existence to luck and not opportunity.
And the irony here is that even as lawmakers like Lamberth shame poor people for playing the lottery, if they didn’t play it the state would have less money to put into the scholarships and educational programs that it pays for.
That fact alone should merit help for them, not chastisement,
Such help could come in the form of lawmakers providing adequate funding to operate schools in impoverished areas — an issue that the Shelby County school system sued the state over two years ago.
Dealing with that issue is important, because even though proceeds from the lottery fund several scholarship programs, most require that students at least have a B average to qualify.
Struggling students trying to get an education in schools with few guidance counselors, as well as limited academic support at home, might have a hard time amassing a B average.
Which means that poor people are disproportionately buying lottery tickets to support programs that many of their children might not be able to benefit from. Even though a college education is certainly a safer route toward escaping poverty than winning the lottery.
Still, it would be easy to see bills intended to stop poor people from buying unhealthy food and wasting money on lottery tickets as attempts to
was at the Vatican discussing the issue with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and other officials.
Exactly what the White House’s involvement in the issue might be is not clear. President Trump said he would direct the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to take a hard look at the resources and personnel that they’re currently devoting to the fight.
“Now, they are devoting a lot,” he said, “but we’re going to be devoting more.”
There’s also talk of more legislation in Congress that would be aimed at preventing all forms of human trafficking, which can involve everything from forced labor to sexual exploitation.
Some 27 million people in more than 165 nations, including the United States, are trapped in the multibillion-dollar modern slave industry, according to groups that are working to end, or at least curtail, the practice.
The U.S. government already has pledged millions of dollars to the End Modern Slavery initiative through the bipartisan legislation Corker ushered through Congress last year.
The goal of the legislation, which then-President Barack Obama signed into law, is to reduce slavery by 50 percent in targeted populations within seven years.
To do that, the law establishes a nonprofit foundation dedicated to combating slavery across the globe. It also sets up a $1.5 billion international fund that will provide grants to programs and projects outside the United States working to free victims of modern slavery and will work to enforce laws to punish people and companies that profit from human trafficking.
The U.S. government will provide $250 million in funding for the initiative over several years — $50 million already has been appropriated — and another $500 million will come from foreign governments. The nonprofit foundation, which will be based in Washington, will be tasked with raising $750 million from the private sector.
If the Trump White House gets involved in the fight, Corker is confident the spotlight it will shine on the issue will be beneficial.
Consider what happened when former President George W. Bush embraced the campaign by another Tennessean, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, to slow the spread of HIV and AIDS across the globe, Corker said in an interview.
“Look at the millions of people whose lives have been saved and changed as a result,” he said.
In Congress, “we’ve taken the initiative (on modern slavery), we’ve worked with others, we passed the bipartisan bill,” he said. “To have the executive branch taking the leadership just adds strength to the effort. My sense is that is going to occur, and we are certainly going to pursue that.”
Michael Collins is the Washington correspondent for the USA Today Network-Tennessee. His weekly Tennessee in D.C. column highlights Volunteer State lawmakers, causes and connections. Contact him at 703-854-8927, at mcollins2@gannett.com or on Twitter at @mcollinsNEWS.