Think Tanks Wrap-up

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- The UPI Think Tank Wrap-Up is a daily digest covering brief opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events, and position statements released by various think tanks.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute

(The LVMI is a research and educational center devoted to classical liberalism -- often known as libertarianism -- and the Austrian School of economics. Grounded in the work of economists Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard, LVMI seeks a radical shift in the intellectual climate by advancing the Austrian School of economics and by promoting the market economy, private property, sound money and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive.)

AUBURN, Ala.--The Lottery Racket

By Gregory Bresiger

One's chance of winning a top prize in one of the rigged state lotteries is so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from zero. That's what Professor A. K. Dewdney wrote in his book "200% of Nothing."

He estimated the chance of winning a big prize in a state lottery as 1 in 13,983,816. California lottery commission officials apparently don't think those numbers are bad enough.

In their feverish drive to take more money from a citizenry that is already overtaxed, they are looking for an even better bet for the state. And thanks to their flim-flam methods of running their Three-Card Monte lottery games, they have been providing many of their lottery players with the proverbial snowball's chance in hell.

Over the past five years, millions of California citizens have bought popular state lottery scratch-off games such as Triple Payout and Wild Bills with hopes of a winning the top prize. Little have these people known that it was hopeless. Little have these poor people known that often the top game prizes have already been won. Little have they known that they are suckers.

California lottery officials, according to published reports, now concede that, even though the top prizes that induce most people to play these games have been won, some of the games are still "active."

That's a bureaucratic way of saying that citizens keep paying through the nose and getting nothing in return. California Lottery Commission officials, in an internal analysis, conceded the problem goes back to 1996, but came up with some facile answers.

"The lottery in no way justifies this," the commission said in a statement. And, in defending themselves, California officials took an indirect shot at other state lotteries. They intimated that other states may also have problems with their lotteries. "We are actually taking more aggressive steps than our counterparts in other states, including Massachusetts," a spokeswoman for the California lottery games said.

Does this mean there is chicanery going on in the taxing Bay State also? Still, California lottery officials rationalized their problem, saying it had occurred in only 1 to 5 percent of the tickets.

"To the extent there was any perceived problem, it was very small," the commission said.

A "perceived" problem?

This is bad enough. But in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lottery Commission spokesman Vince Montane said the state has done nothing wrong because people understand that the $100,000 grand prizes may be gone by the time they buy the tickets.

They do? Yes, they do, said our friend in Sacramento. "It's just part of the way the game is structured," Montane said.

(So if I am a California resident and I am caught cheating on my income tax, can I then use as a defense that, "I couldn't help myself. That's just the way my brain is structured.")

Maybe the state attorney general of California is outraged by this practice, which allows lottery games to be sold for sometimes as long as four weeks after the top prize has been awarded. No, the attorney general appears to be in the same pirate ship with Brother Montane, the Ron Ziegler of the California Lottery Commission.

Last year a disappointed lottery player filed a lawsuit against the state and its shady games. Citing a 1986 law, she argued that the state must be subject to the fair business practice standards that it imposes on the private sector. However, the state attorney general's office -- the guardian of justice -- argued that the lottery commission isn't subject to these fair practice rules.

To further complicate the issue, even top state officials can't agree on the law. Herschel Elkins, head of the consumer division of the same state attorney general's office, doesn't agree with the "we-are-above-the-law" school. He says if one conducted a raffle using the same method of the California State Lottery Commission, that would be a violation of state laws against deceptive business practices.

Apparently, these practices are never deceptive when the money -- or some of it -- goes for state education. So the scratching goes on and on in state after state. The con game goes on.

Will people ever learn that state lotteries are the ultimate shell game? I doubt it. The booming sales of state lotteries are the ultimate vindication of H.L. Mencken's aphorism that, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

(Gregory Bresiger is a writer and editor in New York. His work has appeared in Traders Magazine, The New York Post and The Journal of Libertarian Studies.)

The Cato Institute

Free to Choose the Smallpox Vaccine

By J. Donald Millar

As biohazard crews continue to test and decontaminate Capitol Hill offices plagued by anthrax spores, federal lawmakers are trying to wrap up legislation that would address U.S. preparedness for other future threats of bioterrorism.

A pair of bills recently approved in the House and Senate would channel roughly $3 billion toward anti-bioterrorism efforts, including as much as half a billion dollars for the purchase of vaccine against one of the most frightening weapons: smallpox.

Despite that spending, the legislation proposed would not prevent a smallpox outbreak. Even after the federal government has stockpiled a huge inventory of smallpox vaccine, current guidelines still call for keeping it away from the public until there is a confirmed smallpox outbreak. This plan is a shortsighted recipe for unnecessary panic and no prevention. It's inconsistent with both public health principles and traditional American values.

The government should take a third way: Make the smallpox vaccine available to the public on a voluntary basis. People will be free to choose to take it or not. That's what the government is now doing with an anthrax vaccine (although choice is limited at present to the people possibly exposed to the anthrax-laced letters).

The danger posed by smallpox is great (though, perhaps, not as great as indicated by the federal government's recent "dark winter" scenario). If terrorists were to unleash the variola major strain of the disease, which once racked the Indian subcontinent, 40 percent of the people who are infected would die. The numbers of the sick and dead from a smallpox attack would dwarf those from the recent tragic anthrax attack.

Fortunately, it does not appear as though the terrorists possess weaponized smallpox. But Congress clearly is worrying about that possibility. It is acting as though the smallpox threat is real and appears committed to spend large sums of money to counter it.

Two antiterrorism bills now under consideration on the Hill would allocate funding to purchase smallpox vaccine in 2002 and allow for more purchases in subsequent years.

The purchases would add to the government's current stockpile of 15 million doses of the vaccine, and the 40 million doses currently in the pipeline from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended order in 2000. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has vowed that there will be a vaccine dose set aside for "every man, woman, and child."

Put special emphasis on the "set aside" part of that vow, because neither the legislation nor Bush administration guidelines would make the vaccine available to the public until there is a confirmed smallpox outbreak. Why would the federal government -- as the sole owner of a highly effective smallpox preventative measure -- sit on its stockpile until a number of Americans actually become victims?

The stated reason for withholding the vaccine is that it has potential side effects if widely administered, especially for persons with HIV/AIDS. According to Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher, "You're always hesitant to immunize people against the disease unless there is going to be a risk."

That philosophy stands in remarkable contrast to the traditional "ounce of prevention" public health credo. Consider the statement made several years ago by former CDC director David J. Sencer, who headed the agency when it spearheaded the World Health Organization's global smallpox eradication program: "Stockpiling antibodies in the body is preferable to stockpiling vaccines on warehouse shelves."

To be sure, the danger posed from side effects is to be taken seriously. But, for those people not infected with HIV/AIDS, the vaccine's risks are both known and negligible. Instead of prohibiting the distribution of the disease until smallpox is unleashed on America, would it not be better for the federal government to inform the public of the risks and benefits offered by the vaccine, and then allow each individual to decide whether or not to avail himself of its protection?

This is a classic case for informed consent, decentralized decision-making, and individual weighing of the tradeoff between the small risk of an attack and the small risk of terrible side effects from vaccination. Moreover, if enough people voluntarily choose to get vaccinated, terrorists might well judge that such an attack isn't worth their while. Even the alternative "wait-and-see" approach would be easier to implement if significant numbers of people were already vaccinated voluntarily.

The idea that the government would withhold the only effective means of protecting the population from a terrible disease until an epidemic is confirmed is new to public health. Prevention, in this new concept, obviously has no meaning for the "sentinel" Americans who will become ill and die of smallpox as trigger for the government's response. That is not good public health, and is certainly not good protection from bioterrorism.

(J. Donald Millar is vice chair and a distinguished fellow of the Public Health Policy Advisory Board, and is a former head of the Smallpox Eradication Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This column is excerpted from a larger article appearing in the winter issue of Regulation, the Cato Institute Review of Business and Government.)

Institute for Public Accuracy

(The IPA is a nationwide consortium of policy researchers that seeks to broaden public discourse by gaining media access for experts whose perspectives are often overshadowed by major think tanks and other influential institutions.)

WASHINGTON--The Economy: Bush vs. Daschle?

*Doug Henwood, author of "Wall Street."

"It's nice to see the Democrats doing something other than rolling over. It's too bad, though, that Daschle is spending so much time on the importance of fiscal discipline -- an obsession of Wall Street, but not any broader constituency -- when 2.6 million workers have lost their jobs over the last year, and millions more are worried that they'll be next.

And investment and employment tax credits won't help much; businesses only invest and hire when sales and profits look good, which they don't right now. Daschle and his colleagues should be talking more about extended and expanded unemployment benefits (only half the unemployed draw benefits now, compared with three quarters in the 1970s) and aid to severely strapped states and localities. And it would be really nice if he brought up some longer-term issues, like a national health insurance plan, which is especially relevant now that millions of workers are losing their insurance, and millions more are facing cutbacks in coverage."

*Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families.

"Sen. Daschle's speech calling for 'fiscal discipline' was quite restrained and polite by recent political standards -- and yet, the result is the kind of political mudslinging that most Americans hate ... Daschle did not suggest raising taxes, but the headlines quote President Bush's response 'Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes.' ... Unfortunately, the president's response suggests that the enormous tax cuts that were passed in 2001 will be implemented, regardless of terrorism or war or recession or deficits. The president's statement is so extreme that the Democrats are off the hook, and no longer have an incentive to provide leadership on this issue. Why bother if they don't have the votes to override a veto?"

Richard B. Du Boff, professor of economics at Bryn Mawr College.

"There are positive elements to Daschle's economic statements, but one aspect which is awful and virtually undermines everything else --Daschle's 'competitive tax cut' (my label) theme: Bush's tax cuts are bad, ours would be better. The only feasible alternative is to repeal the Bush tax cuts as soon as possible. They are far too large, massively concentrated at upper income levels, and do not really begin to take effect for another three to six years. Immediate priority should be extending unemployment compensation, covering medical insurance for people who lose their jobs, and cutting taxes for the bottom third of the income scale only, preferably by giving them a holiday from FICA taxes. This is what should be coupled with a call for immediate repeal of the Bush tax cuts."