Reply #129: Ok, let me take a few steps back...

[demwing]

Because I am finding myself in the position of defending the lottery, which was never my true intent. My real goal in this thread was to support the position that a national lottery would not be a tax.

I stand by that statement. A lottery would not be a tax.

Further, a lottery would be 100% voluntary. I don't buy into the hype that advertising is somehow equivalent to overwhelming compulsion.

Whether a lottery would be a good measure (or even an effective measure) is academic, in my opinion, because I don't believe a National Lottery will ever happen.

I cede the point that the lottery is played mostly (but not exclusively) by the people who can least afford it, though I do not believe those people are targeted. I also wonder whether the lottery chicken or the poverty egg came first... are the poor more likely to play lotto, or are the people who choose to do things like play lottery just less money-wise, and therefore more likely to end up under the poverty line?