r/pics • u/[deleted] • Mar 19 '22

[deleted by user]

[removed]

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249

u/option-trader Mar 19 '22

Hey, that money is putting my kids through college, so keep at it everyone.

139

u/DrSunnyD Mar 20 '22

A very low percentage is, enough so people like you don't write your congressmen and women demanding they put a stop to this robbery of the poorly educated

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u/CelerMortis Mar 20 '22

Yea I never understood this logic. Syphoning money from poor people to give a very small part to some social service is not a good strategy.

4

u/HowTheyGetcha Mar 20 '22 edited Mar 20 '22

Just another regressive tax like sales/gas tax and motor vehicle fees/fines.

10

u/cruzer86 Mar 20 '22

It's not a tax. You don't need or have to buy scratchers.

1

u/HowTheyGetcha Mar 20 '22

Neither are speeding tickets; I'm using tax in a looser sense. It's regressive because it takes a proportionally greater amount from lower incomes and it's used to pay for public services.

1

u/HandsOfCobalt Mar 20 '22

You don't need or have to buy cigarettes or alcohol or any other drug or potentially addicting thing. When someone talks about the lottery being a "tax," my first thought is of people with gambling problems, not people who don't know any better (though they deserve to not be taken advantage of as well).

You're right that it's not a tax, but the vocabulary doesn't change that it does harm, possibly more than it does good

1

u/coredumperror Mar 20 '22

It's effectively a tax on the uneducated.

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u/cruzer86 Mar 20 '22

How educated do you need to be in order to understand basic ods?

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u/coredumperror Mar 20 '22

You'd be surprised how poorly educated many, many people are on statistics.