Letter to the Editor: 2/14/13

Dear editor,

HB 1398 suggests that horses fare better on the farm if we make hay through the lottery.

While HB 1398 begins admirably enough with an all-American emphasis on the rural lifestyle – who isn’t for cows and kids and barnyard smells – yet to seek a dedicated source of funding for farms via scratch tickets has more the aroma of cow-pies than apple pie given horses in the pasture will share equal gambling profits with race horses on the track.

Adding to recipients of lottery revenue – education, stadiums, and veterans – HB 1398 would divvy up 50/50 a further slice of the gambling-money-pie between 4-H horses and the horse in Lane 4.

I’m betting the farm this is a bad idea as more of nothing is still nothing.

The last lottery go-round to support soldiers returning from war to their financially-struggling families for example netted nothing in the way of significant funds. Evidently not enough of us scratched lottery tickets leaving the troops and their family to scratch out a sub-existence. The lottery winners however, and the lottery administration, got theirs.

HB 1398 – the chicken, kids and cows bill – could work though, and reduce the work of the farmhands at the same time, if all us pardners prepare to pony up for the pending promo: “Chicken-scratch lotto – support your local farm.”

David Anderson