What Happened to the Lottery Money

A perceptive reader asks a perceptive question in the Statesman yesterday. Tim Zamperini writes:

Have you looked at your property tax lately? Where is the money from the lottery, and from the developers for the schools and property?

Where did it go? Answer: They spent it. The lottery was supposed to solve educational funding needs in our state, but those funds are far too fungible, and that’s a lesson in the school of hard knocks for taxpayers. Whatever tax increases or lotteries are demanded as a way to pay for education, be assured that next session or the next year, there’ll be more demands for higher property taxes, sales taxes, or income taxes, because there is no such thing as “enough” with public school spending in Idaho. Our politicians only know the meaning of “more.”