Cajoled by slick marketing schemes and advertising paid for an promoted by the government, poor people are voluntarily giving up 1/5th of their income in the hope of improving their lives. David Cay Johnston, in his column for Tax.com says that while most state lotteries were sold as a means to raise money for schools, “Ticket sales have to rise by 21 percent just to make up for the reduction in money going to education.”

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. And while corporate tax revenue should grow as the economy recovers, the lottery will continue to bring in more through at least 2017, the most distant year the forecast covers…

…this trend is not just taking place at the state level. It is playing out in Washington, in city halls, and in rural county courthouses.

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.

Lottery funds paid for half of the $51 million gas pipeline sold to the voters with a promise of 2,900 jobs. The County is now considering selling the pipeline to retire some of the debt and put it back on the tax roll. Oregon schools could have used $25,000,000…