By Dan Proft
If Illinois’ Ruling Class is known for one thing it is their tenacious commitment to ideas that don’t work. It is this dogged determination that has made Springfield the nation’s capital for bad public policy.
And so the Ruling Class continues to chase their bad bets by doubling down on gambling expansion with hearings for a Chicago casino this week. Lottery. Boats. Video Poker. More boats. All that’s left is to resuscitate Blagojevich’s Keno for Kids gambit.
Their redundancy does have one benefit. I do not have to make new arguments against old ideas, I can just recycle the arguments I have been making for years.
“Thirty-five years ago, we were told that the Illinois Lottery would solve our school-funding problems forever. Ten years after its creation, in 1985, Illinois politicians passed a law specifically requiring that Lottery profits go directly into the Common School Fund. And that was the last we ever heard about school funding woes in Illinois, right? Of course not.”
I am sorry to say they are just as applicable today as they were when they first ran.
