The HOPE
Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally. No one could object to that, could they? This beast is not exactly a milestone in the history of the acronym but it contains much that is typical and objectionable in anything that goes by sentimental initials. The HOPE is famous around here, enjoying an existence as a sacred cow nearly as holy at the State level as, say, Social Security is at the Fed. It is a program (or scheme) to fund college education for Georgia students. Financed completely by lottery revenue, it was the reason the lottery was ever able to be born in this bible-belt state. Hardly anyone can remember now that there was serious opposition both moral, religious and practical when the firecracker Democrat Zell Miller rode his idea into the Governor’s Mansion in ’91 and today nearly every Georgian is touched someway by HOPE.
It seems like a fantasy now but believe it or not, in days of yore, if someone running for office proposed a new multi-billion dollar entitlement program some objection was sometimes made to the cost. Just how will this be paid for? As the gentleman said, the path to victory in any election is to not tax you and not tax me but to tax that fellow behind the tree. Miller did an end run around this dilemma. HOPE would not touch Georgia tax revenues, not a dime. Instead the State would go into a business that was otherwise illegal, basically the numbers racket. [Read more →]
