The three main goals for establishing a computerized lottery system are to satisfy the middle and lower classes' dreams of wealth, create employment for the handicapped and eliminate the national budget deficit. The government's main concern is, of course, the third item.
With frequent elections, opposition and ruling parties are issuing blank checks like their lives depended on it in order to get more votes. Apart from major public construction projects, high-expenditure social welfare measures are created, one after the other. Structural deficits often occur in the national budget, a trend that is on the increase.
What happens if revenues don't meet expenditures? The solution is to increase revenues and cut expenditures, but in order to curry favor with voters, there is no way expenditures can be cut. How to increase revenue has therefore become a thorny issue for the Ministry of Finance. There are three ways to do so:
First, by increasing taxes across the board. This will incense the public, something the ruling party dares not risk.
Second, putting the knife to the necks of the wealthy, cracking down on tax evasion and strictly reviewing tax exemption and tax reduction requirements. The problem is that it is easy to discover tax evasion among wage earners, while it's difficult to prevent tax evasion on profits, interest and land lease income.
If it wasn't for politicians exposing the skeletons in rival's closets, it would probably prove difficult beyond description for the public to find information about tax evasion among officials and businessmen. In particular, with the economy taking the lead (sidestepping fairness and justness), the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Council for Economic Planning and Development often support the employers' viewpoint, demanding the finance ministry relax the conditions for tax exemption or tax reduction.
This leaves only the third option for increasing revenues, and that is to take from the poor to save the rich, ie, making the middle and lower classes pay up. A lottery is a tax following the law of least resistance. Even though the probability of winning is near zero, everyone harbors hopes -- so no one feels that they have been taxed.
One major reason why "the lottery for the public good" is "good" is that it creates employment for the handicapped. What the handicapped need most, however, is not the right to sell lottery tickets, but equal rights to education and educational environments, easily accessible public spaces, and an unprejudiced employment situation. This is the direction in which the government should direct its efforts, and also would yield the greatest good for the handicapped.
A TV ad for the lottery in California used to say that "it takes 10 years to grow a tree, but 100 years to bring up a generation of good men." The ad encouraged people to buy lottery tickets since 3 percent of the income would go to educational expenditures. The ad was successful, as it captured the importance people place on education.
The problem is that the lion's share of the income from California's lottery went to non-educational purposes, something that the ad did not mention. It is obvious that the uneducated who believed that they could support education by buying a lottery ticket were cheated -- the ad was simply trying to "pass fish eyes off as pearls" as the old Chinese saying goes -- and the government of California was the main schemer behind the plot. It was really tragic.
Lotteries are unfair and unjust, in Taiwan as well as abroad.
Lin Ching-yuan is an associate professor in the economics department of Tamkang University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not