This just in.......lottery winners pay normal tax rates on income earned and Jacoby tries to feign outrage by giving the illusion that something more than that is going on......film at 11

More whining from Jeff Jacoby since his side lost the election and the tax reform argument with the American public. Unfortunately his concoctions will only get worse with Jim DeMint supplying him with faulty news that is twisted to show an ideology when the opposite is true. It is time for the Globe to do an in depth investigation of this organization showing who funds it, who selects the themes and "data" they use, and how it entwines itself into the national media. All we got is a hint of this when the Senate's most wayward member is now its head. It is time for newspapers to shed light on this think tank as well as others whichever side they support. The public discourse of news is heavily influenced by such organizations and we should know more about them.

Always ready to take a swipe at the "greedy government", hey Jeff?

Maybe you could take a look at the results from republican efforts to privatize many things in the military.  You would have a field day of waste, greed,inefficiencies and mismanagement.

The government is accountable to the people and they have a say in government.  Private contractors have their snout in corporate welfare.  This corporate welfare, is far more costly than social welfare, yest that republicans always whine about: the poor and downtrodden.  How kind of them.

We'll never get an honest analysis of corporate welfare by people like Jacoby.  It's easier to point at poor people and villianize them.

Ain't that right, Jeff?

Jeff-the government is the people. The money doesn't go to some entity called "the government". Done correctly, the money is earmarked to bring some benefit to society. You write like a little fifth grade girl trying to impress her teacher with all of the right wing swill her daddy told her at the dinner table. Yes, lottery tickets are a tax on the poor.  Just as regressive as taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and hopefully in the near future-Marijuana. So in Jeff Jacoby's upside down little world, we should...I can't even wrap my head around what the Pete he's talking about here...we should have private companies administer? the lottery...keep all the profits?....be better somehow for the end user...better payouts....?? Private companies would still get taxed... So we get it. You can't tax the rich, you can't tax the poor you can't tax the middle-but who pays for services? There's always the tooth fairy. 

This chooch thinks lotteries exist to make winners happy.

Jacoby's column hit three topical issues for me. The first was the structure of our tax system; the second was the target audience for lotteries. (The "fiscal cliff" and local row over casino gambling bear out their importance.) The column's last paragraph, though, most caught my eye. The refrain from writers such as Jacoby that taxes "enrich" the government leaves the impression that "government" is some alien entity divorced from the population. Although perhaps unintentional, the upshot of such phrasing implies government is somehow "illegitimate" and not really influenced by elections. It's fine if Jacoby has qualms about certain government spending. Better, though, to hit that specifically rather than tar the entire democratic process through poor word choice.

duh? Just as casino owners run their slots for the money, states run their lotteries for the money.

The call the lottery a stupidity tax for a reason.  Now we need a term for people who whine about taxes on lottery winners...

Jeff:  "So what?"

So earned income should be taxed at a higher rate? The fact that they take 50% off the top to start with could cause some umbrage, but being annoyed about it being taxable is ridiculous. Actually, the better story, some years ago, was the couple who gave back their all expense trip to a Dolphin--Patriots game, because, with the trumped up "retail value," they would have owed more in taxes than they could get the trip for with some prudent shopping. Makes you wonder what prize (vs cash) winning game show winner do.

This is what troubles Mr Jacoby? This is what inspires him to write? Pathetic.

... and The Globe employs Jacoby and publishes this nonsense because ??