(Video above: Terrell Kennedy discusses the prospect of an Alabama lottery.)
Terrell Kennedy is the founder of Fit for Life, an after-school tutoring program for adolescent men in Birmingham. Kennedy started Fit for Life in 2005 as a way to give back and bring hope to his community, in contrast to what he believes pro-lottery Alabama politicians are now offering Alabamians: false hope.
The Alabama Senate approved lottery legislation last week. The bill, which was approved by a margin of 21-12, would send $100 million of lottery revenue each year to Medicaid, which is facing a $70 million shortfall this year, and the rest to the General Fund. The House is set to debate the bill this week. If it passes, a Constitutional Amendment will appear on the November ballot for statewide approval by the voters.
“I grew up in the projects,” Mr. Kennedy says in a video produced by the Alabama Policy Institute, a conservative think tank in Birmingham. “And I wanted to be to my family what I did not have. I wanted to be a good dad. And I’m just so concerned about the condition of the family today. We are already struggling. We’re going against headwinds. And, it’s unbelievable to me that our politicians, many of them who are of the same color as I am, who grew up just like I did, and now they have the power to make great decisions for our people—and [gambling] is what they’re offering them?”
“Who truly benefits from gambling?” He continues. “It’s not those at the bottom. We know that the rich will continue to get richer, those who are behind gambling. And we know that the politicians will continue to do well. They will be unaffected by all that takes place, all the destruction that takes place.”
Mr. Kennedy specifically mentioned the addictive nature of gambling that leads individuals to “put their hope in this activity” and ultimately “lose the money that is necessary to feed their kids, to feed their family.”
“Households break down,” he laments. “People do all kinds of things for addiction. It’s no different than being addicted to drugs. You do what’s necessary to get the money to try to make that big hit. With all of the issues that we’ve got in our society, we surely do not need to make decisions that will add to those problems.”
Mr. Kennedy also said the promise of a financial windfall for the state is unlikely, based on the experience of other states.
A Washington Post report published in 2012, for example, called into question whether so called education lotteries actually benefit public schools. According to the report, legislators in many states have concocted ways to keep the additional funds from ever making it into classrooms. In Texas, lottery funds paid for about two weeks of schooling for public school students in 1996. By 2010 it was down to three days.
“The evidence is bountiful,” concludes Mr. Kennedy. “Many states were told what we are being told by our politicians, and they were lied to—just like our politicians are lying to us.”
