Craig Ford: It will take more than a lottery

  In less than two weeks, the Alabama Legislature will return to Montgomery to take up a lottery bill that no one has seen.

  Gov. Robert Bentley, who has prided himself on using “the element of surprise” when it comes to calling special legislative sessions, has still not released any details or even had any conversations with legislators about the lottery he plans to introduce.

  All the governor has said is that his lottery will be used for the General Fund budget instead of the education budget.

Craig Ford: Why lottery revenue must go to scholarships

  Over the last year or so, the lottery has been getting more and more attention and support from Alabama legislators. The lottery is extremely popular, getting over 60 percent favorable support in all the public opinion polls that I’ve seen. The debate these days isn’t so much over whether we should have a lottery but how we should spend the revenue the lottery will create.

  There are three ways the lottery revenue can be spent: Spend all of it on education, spend all of it in the general fund, or split it between the two budgets. Considering all the problems with Medicaid and the general fund budget, some legislators see the lottery as their ticket out of a no-win situation. But the fact is the lottery won’t save Medicaid or the general fund—and there are several reasons why it won’t.