Editorials

[ OUR OPINION ]

Don’t gamble with
public school funding

THE ISSUE Gubernatorial candidate D.G. "Andy" Anderson says he will seek a lottery to help finance education if he's elected.

Two things are wrong with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andy Anderson's proposal to set up a lottery to raise funds that would lighten the burden of paying for the state's educational system:

>> It would relieve the state Legislature and the governor of the need for fiscal discipline. If the people of Hawaii want a better educational system -- and every bit of evidence indicates we sorely need it -- then we should be willing to pay for it. More important, the voters and taxpayers should demand that elected officials take responsibility for fixing the schools, not just with money but with higher standards, more rigorous teaching and far less bureaucracy.

>> Allowing a lottery here sure would be the nose under the tent, the foot in the door, the opening shot -- pick your cliché -- of a steady, well-orchestrated and well-funded campaign by the gaming industry and their local allies to open Hawaii to other forms of gambling. The industry's representatives have oiled their way across the floor many times in the past and keep coming back for more, despite the so far successful battle the anti-gambling forces have waged.

Anderson stands alone among the leading candidates for the governor's chair to advocate a lottery. His opponents within the Democratic Party, Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Ed Case have opposed all forms of gambling, as has the presumptive Republican candidate, Linda Lingle.

Even so, Anderson has done the electorate a favor by bringing the gambling issue out into the open and inserting it into the election campaign. Debating proposals such as this now -- and not after the election -- will be refreshing in a robust democracy.

In a meeting with Star-Bulletin editors and reporters last week, Anderson said: "I am tired of reading about how there are no schoolbooks or supplies." Agreed. But the way to get schoolbooks and supplies is for the Legislature and the governor to figure out how to cut waste in the Department of Education or elsewhere in the state's bloated bureaucracy and shift the funds thus generated into more books and supplies.

Anderson proposes to ask the voters to approve a constitutional amendment to allow the lottery and would include a raft of safeguards to prevent the proceeds of a lottery, which he estimated at $30 million to $40 million a year, from being siphoned off into the pet projects of legislators.

Perhaps that would work, but experience in other states suggests that the temptation for politicians will be too strong to resist and no creature on Earth is more resourceful than a politician when it comes to getting his or her hands on money.

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Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.

Don Kendall, Publisher

Frank Bridgewater, Editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, Assistant Editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, Assistant Editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.com

Mary Poole, Editorial Page Editor, 529-4790; mpoole@starbulletin.com
John Flanagan, Contributing Editor 294-3533; jflanagan@starbulletin.com

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