In light of recent news about the governor’s plan to siphon funds from the “education” lottery to fill gaps in the state budget, this editorial from the Winston-Salem Journal is instructive:
North Carolina legislators debated creation of a lottery for decades. Many different plans were proposed before supporters hit on the winning formula: The N.C. Education Lottery would raise money only for new education initiatives. Presented that way, the lottery gained favor with a large percentage of North Carolinians.
Easley and legislators almost immediately broke their first promise when they applied lottery money to existing early childhood-education programs that Easley had created several years earlier. So, from the start, the lottery money supplanted other education money. Only heaven knows where the new money generated by the lottery was really spent.
So, just like in other states, the promise that lottery funds would be used for education only was a farce from the beginning.
