Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Oh, Do Not Think About It!

Privatising the Maryland Lottery!? I will not be having any of that!
Maryland Lottery Director Buddy Roogow said he has not studied the idea of privatizing the lottery in detail, but he said he wonders whether private operators would consider the deals worthwhile, given the constraints that states are likely to put on them in terms of payments and restrictions on how the lottery operates.

But leaders in other states are betting they can come out winners from a privatization deal. Last week, Perry, a Republican, argued that selling the Texas state lottery would eliminate that volatility from state budgets and would result in an annual gain for the state's coffers.

If the state invests the $14 billion generated by a sale and gets a 9 percent return, it would yield $1.3 billion a year, about $300 million more annually than the state gets from the lottery now, the Texas governor said. Perry proposed using the money for cancer research, education funding and a subsidy for those without health insurance.

Even if the Maryland Government sells off the lottery, they would not be able to implement these plans anyway. And they could do the same ideas while keeping the lottery in public hands. Don't sell it off it, keep it for the public good.

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