The Texas House had a moment of insanity yesterday. Led by freshmen Republican legislators, a motion to continue the Texas Lottery Commission was defeated in the House of Representatives (on a vote of 82 to 64). The shocking vote would have dismantled the state lottery.House leaders, surprised by the move then scrambled to get the bill reconsidered. They had to remind the legislators that the lottery has provided some much needed funds to the state treasury, and in fact, at least $2 billion in lottery funds has already been written into the proposed state budget for the coming biennium. That money would have had to be replaced by some other means (taxes?) if the lottery was not continued.
Since 1997, the lottery has provided about $15 billion for the state's school fund (and put about $26 million a years in state benefits for veterans). Once these facts were brought to light (facts the legislators should have known already), another vote was held to reconsider the bill. The motion to reconsider was passed, and finally, the bill was approved by the House on a vote of 91 to 53.
This was a conflict between tea bagger social values and fiscal sanity. In the last legislative session in 2011 (the Texas legislature only meets once every two years), the Republicans cut school funding by about $5 billion. This years budget restores about 20% of that money, but if the lottery had been killed another $2 billion would have been lost -- meaning the school funds would have again been cut (or taxes would have been raised). Thank goodness that cooler heads prevailed.
It does bring up the question though of whether some of the newer teabagger members of the House have a clue about state finances.
