Whitmire: Alabama doesnt have a gambling problem. Its worse than that. – AL.com

This is an opinion column.

Gambling is an answer in search of a problem just not Alabamas problem.

If you want to see one of the biggest reasons Alabama lags behind in most measurements of quality of life, I can show you with a chart. Its a little old as data goes three years but like Alabama, little about the data has changed for the better.

Three years ago, the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy calculated what Alabamians pay in state and local taxes and put that data on a chart. On the left side are the poor folks. On the right are the rich. Its an ugly picture. This is what it shows.

If you made $11,000 that year, you paid about 9.9 percent of your income in one state or local tax or another sales, property and income.

On the other hand, if you made $500,000 that year, you paid about 5 percent.

For sales tax the biggest draw or drain, depending on which side youre on the poorest 20 percent paid 7.1 percent of their income. The richest one percent paid just one percent.

Alabama's dependence on sales taxes puts a greater burden on the poor than the rich, perpetuating poverty instead of solving it.

In short, the less money you make, the greater percentage of that money you pay in state and local taxes. The only major change since then was in 2019, when Gov. Kay Ivey and Alabama lawmakers raised the states gas tax, which made this regressive tax structure even worse.

At the heart of Alabamas problems is this: We ask more from people who dont have the means to bear the burden of state expenses than we do those with the most means to pay. Our tax structure perpetuates poverty instead of alleviating it.

And soon we might turn to gambling.

A lottery isnt going to fix Alabamas big problem.

Casinos arent going to fix it, either.

But some lawmakers are determined to try.

A proposal to legalize gambling in Alabama, introduced by state Sen. Del Marsh, promises to rake in hundreds of millions in new revenue for Alabama, but theres nothing new about it. Its the same old thing this state has always done. Our officials are searching for another way to do the same thing weve always done.

And were likely to get the same weve always gotten.

Im not against gambling itself. As a moral issue, if someone wants to set their money on fire in the backyard, its theirs to do with as they please. And lets face it, its not hard to find a place to blow your money these days, either by crossing a state line or day trading stocks on your phone.

But there is one question I cant get past. Why is it OK if the state taxes the heck out of it, but a crime if not?

I dont believe the sole criterion for a thing being legal or illegal should be whether a state gets a cut.

And the very worst reason we could have for making a thing legal is to again rob from the poor to give to the rich.

Every year in Alabama, we have this debate. And every year it ends the same way. Gambling legislation fails not because of religious prudes or high-minded navel-gazers like me, but because of gambling interests. The Poarch Creek Indians and the dog tracks-turned-bingo-halls fight over who will get the biggest piece of the action and their squabbling kills the bill. Every time the Legislature tries to split the baby, it actually splits the baby.

But maybe this is the year all that changes. Maybe the bad ideas time has come.

And maybe when its done and when it doesnt work we can move on to the good ideas nobody yet wants to try like removing sales taxes on groceries and medicine, or taxing farm and timberland like Mississippi.

Maybe.

But I wouldnt bet on it.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

You can follow his work on his Facebook page, The War on Dumb. And on Twitter. And on Instagram.

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Whitmire: Alabama doesnt have a gambling problem. Its worse than that. - AL.com