Originally, I was going to try to pin this whole thing on Gov. Ted Strickland, but I realized that this problem has been going on since the beginning of Ohio's Lottery and isn't a new fad at all.Of course, Taxin' Ted had an opportunity to fix the shell game known as the Ohio Lottery, but he wouldn't want to do that because then he wouldn't have money to shift around to other budget items which would otherwise go un- or under-funded. The state legislature, who just recently passed the "Republican" budget, aren't interested in fixing this problem either...
At any rate, what am I talking about? The state constitution states that all profits from the state lottery must be spent on education, but reality has shown us that what happens is that whatever profit the lottery makes allows that much money from the education budget to be redirected to something else. So when Lottery Director Michael Dolan announced that the lottery made $31.4 million more than what was expected, you'd think that the education budget just got a nice little boost.
It doesn't.
Remember at the top of this post when I said I was thinking about pinning the whole thing on Strickland? Remember who campaigned saying that they had a secret plan to "fix" the education funding problem? Remember who has been eerily silent on that issue since taking office? Remember who was so thrilled with this budget that he actually embraced the Speaker of the Ohio House who is from the other party?
Taxes are going up, my friends...
