Oregon gets 'substantially more' revenue from the lottery than from corporate income tax

So sad. This from David Cay Johnston at Tax.com (my emphasis):

The long-running drive in America to push the burden of taxes down the income ladder has reached a new milestone in Oregon, which sends a troubling message for where our country's public finances are headed.

Oregon now gets substantially more revenue from state-sponsored gambling than from its corporate income tax.

The Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, the state agency that forecasts revenue and expenses, said that for the 2011-2013 biennium, the lottery should net the state almost $1.1 billion compared with just under $900 million from the corporate income tax. ... In other words, in Oregon those least able to afford it, those who benefit least from America's economy, are being cajoled into bearing a heavier share of the burdens of government. At the same time, politicians are lavishing ever more tax breaks on corporations, those storehouses of wealth whose managers want to enjoy the benefits of public transportation, public education, public courts, and everything else the taxpayers provide, without sharing in the burdens.

And note the argument against lotto incomes for states — it's not the "morality" but the inequality:

Lotteries, by and large, are a tax on the poor, study after study has shown. North Carolina Watch did a study of lottery ticket sales in that state's 100 counties and found that per capita revenue was highest in 19 of the 20 poorest counties.

The lottery is, for sure, a voluntary tax. But it is still mostly a tax on the poor.

A tax on the poor driven by fear and desperation. (Not bad for the lotto companies, however; I wonder how it works, getting a state-sanctioned gambling contract through our corruption-free state legislatures.)

If you want to argue the immorality of lotteries, I think this makes a fine starting point:

Lotteries in most places, including California and North Carolina, were sold on the basis that they would provide more money for education. Prof. Ross Rubenstein at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, who studies education finance, said there is robust evidence that lottery revenue tends to supplant, not supplement, tax dollars going to education.

I've just scratched the surface of this good article, and David Cay Johnston is one of our national treasures. From deeper in the piece, these gems:

The corporate income tax situation in Oregon, where many companies pay nominal amounts, is part of a broader trend as well. This is a state in which officials are poised to let Warren Buffett pocket taxes embedded in rates paid to his electric utility[.] ... Nationally, corporate income taxes have fallen to some of their lowest levels as a share of GDP ever. ... The average share of corporate income taxes since 1971 has been 2 percent, the CBO data show.

So much for that supposed "35% corporate tax rate" the CNBC blond(e)s complain about. David Cay Johnston at his best.

Speaking anecdotally about the lottery, it sure seems to me that the big numbers — the $100 million pools and up — for the multi-state lotteries are coming faster and faster, at an alarming rate. If lottos are constructed so that incoming purchases drive the top-prize number (and I believe that's the case), people must be buying tickets at a fearsome rate.

If that's a measure of people's economic self-assessment in this jobless "recovery," you could almost predict a double-dip recession from that metric alone. Scary.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Deepwater Horizon owner gives huge bonuses for 'best year in safety performance in company's history.' Uh, your rig exploded in a massive oil spill.

The second largest oil spill in US history, and the fifth largest in world history.



And their executives are getting huge bonuses for their "exemplary" safety record and the "best year in safety performance in our company's history."



Yes, besides that explosion that killed eleven people immediately, killed sea life, ruined the fishing industry, trashed tourism jobs and polluted the Gulf of Mexico, it was the best year ever! A banner year! It's always refreshing to see corporate America take responsibility for their actions. Oh how I admire them.

Transocean Ltd. gave its top executives bonuses for achieving the "best year in safety performance in our company's history" — despite the explosion of its oil rig that killed 11 people, including nine of its own employees, and spilled 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

The company said in a regulatory filing that its most senior managers were given two-thirds of their total possible safety bonus.

Transocean noted "the tragic loss of life" in the Gulf when the rig operated by BP PLC exploded last April. But it said the company still had an "exemplary" safety record because it met or exceeded certain internal safety targets concerning the frequency and severity of its accidents, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

Make sure you check out the exclusive photos that AMERICAblog published last May showing the rig exploding and slowly sinking into the ocean. Then ask yourself how this was their best safety year ever. I shudder to think of the other years. Read the rest of this post...

BP to start deepwater drilling in Gulf

MSNBC:

In a deal with U.S. regulators, BP this summer plans to restart deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on 10 wells in exchange for tougher safety rules, British media reported Sunday.

The London-based oil giant promised to abide by rules that are stricter than guidelines set after the April 20, 2010, blast on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers, The Financial Times and The Sunday Times of London reported. The accident, which released almost 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, was the largest marine spill in U.S. history.

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Please help save a no-kill animal shelter in Bloomfield, New Jersey

It's local politics, and a nice thing to help out on. Make sure you "like" the Facebook page, they're trying to get the numbers up for tomorrow's city council vote on closing the shelter.

From AMERICAblog reader Steve:

I don't post many pictures of Looch (above) because he's afraid of the camera but every now and then I'm able to get a shot off before he realizes whats happening.

Looch came to us 4 years ago from a kill shelter that we rescued him from. He now lives happily with my brother-in-law and he has turned out to be an awesome friend and companion.

Kill shelters suck but they at least give a pet a second chance of finding a new home.

My town has a no-kill shelter that they are trying to shut down, the vote is tomorrow. As of last week they told us they would find money to keep it open but it's sad how quickly things change and we are back at square one and the cross hairs are on the shelter again.

If you haven't done so please call or e-mail my mayor and tell him how bad of an idea it is to close the no-kill shelter. His contact information can be found here as well as any number of other town reps you can call to express your outrage.

Also, if you support this cause please go here and "like" the Facebook page so that we can show our mayor how many people object to the closure. It doesn't matter if you live in my town or not, as the old saying goes, "vote early and vote often!", it's the democratic way!

Mayor Raymond McCarthy: mccarthy@bloomfieldtwpnj.com Read the rest of this post...

Southwest grounds flights after massive hole in mid-air

And remember which bunch of idiots in Washington would like to scrap regulation that demands safety standards. CNN:

Southwest Airlines announced Saturday that it is grounding 79 planes for inspection after a 3- to 4-foot hole tore open in the fuselage of one of its planes, bringing a view of the blue sky and a white-knuckled emergency descent.

The plane -- which had been traveling from Phoenix to Sacramento, California -- managed to make an emergency landing at a military base in Yuma, Arizona, on Friday. There authorities "discovered a hole in the top of the aircraft," the company said earlier.

Investigators are trying to determine what caused the "depressurization event" and have "decided to keep a subset of its Boeing 737 fleet out of the flying schedule to begin an aggressive inspection effort in cooperation with Boeing engineers," according to a company statement.

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The Messina Wars have begun

America finds itself in a fourth war: The war over Jim Messina's legacy.

Ben Smith informs us that the White House appears to be in all out battle mode in response to Ari Berman's recent critical profile of outgoing White House deputy chief of staff and incoming Obama 2012 campaign director Jim Messina.

Seems the Lady Messina's boss doth protest too much.

The skirmish began with Ari Berman's shot across the bow, a piece suggesting Messina is a calculating enforcer who shares Rahm Emanuel's scorn for the liberal base.

The pushback began in a Marc Ambinder piece arguing that Messina is just an operative doing his job, and quickly escalated to a Huffington Post essay by Robert Creamer -- a consultant and liberal stalwart who is also Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky's husband -- arguing that Messina is in fact the secret love child of George McGovern and Eleanor Roosevelt. This was enthusiastically distributed on Twitter by DNC spokespeople Hari Sevugan and Brad Woodhouse (who threw in a mention of Messina's work against privatizing Social Security).

Comes now Jeff Zeleny's profile of Messina as -- as he describes himself -- the "science" to Obama's "art" -- Peter to Obama's Jesus, you might say.

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Bombing in Northern Ireland kills police officer

Senseless.

Dissident republican terrorists have killed a young police officer in Omagh. The victim was only a schoolboy when the worst atrocity of Northern Ireland's Troubles was visited upon the same town 13 years ago.

A booby-trap car bomb killed Constable Ronan Kerr outside his home in Omagh, where 29 men, women and children were murdered in 1998. At the time of that massacre Kerr was only 12.

The murder of the young Catholic police officer united unionists and nationalists across Ireland, all of whom vowed to oppose those republicans determined to destabilise the historic power-sharing settlement in the north.

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The Beatles - Dear Prudence

After sunshine and temperatures in the 70's, it had to break. We had a solid night of rain and it looks gray and drizzly out there now, but the gardens definitely need the water. The tulips are moving along nicely and have even peaked in some places. My hydrangeas are green again but they're obviously months away from bloom. The fuchsias in the garden are also coming back to life after a harsh December that I thought wiped them out. (In December, I woke to the noise of a pot cracking from the cold twice.) The rhododendron still has a while to go and I'm hoping for a better season than last year when we only had a few flowers. Nice, but so little. Read the rest of this post...

Mass killing reported in Ivory Coast as fighting continues

Civilian deaths have been common in this war but 800 people in one location is especially bad news. It's not clear what benefit the UN is providing but let's hope they are providing some value on the ground. The Guardian:

Forces loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo defied expectations by mounting stubborn resistance in the economic capital for a third day, raising fears of protracted urban warfare and soaring casualties. The heavy weapons fire and fighting left thousands of people barricaded inside their homes and in increasingly urgent need of food, water and medical treatment. Looting is rife amid a sense of lawlessness and anarchy.

Deepening the fear in the capital, it was reported that at least 800 people were massacred in intercommunal violence in the western town of Duékoué, which fell to rebels last week. This was despite the presence of hundreds of UN peacekeepers there.

In five days, the rebel forces aiming to install Alassane Ouattara, the widely recognised winner of last November's election, took nearly 80% of Ivory Coast before entering Abidjan and encircling the presidential residence and palace.

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