Lottery Makes Hay for Horses

I have an equestrian question.  Do horses fare better on the farm if we make hay through the lottery? 

On Monday, Feb.11, the State Legislature, specifically the House Appropriations Committee, will have a public hearing on HB 1398. 

The first paragraph of the bill, Section One, declares that “it is in the public interest to hold agricultural fairs, exhibit livestock and agricultural produce with demonstrations designed to train youth and to promote the welfare of farm people and rural living.”

O.K. so far with HB 1398?  Sure you are.  Who isn’t for cows and kids and barnyard smells – including, but certainly not limited to, manure which, by the way, attracts flies and flies in turn create maggots. 

With that last being said you are now prepared for Section Two of HB 1398 – the all-American bill that began with farm animals and the admirable children who raise them. 

To financially support such fine upstanding youth dedicated to the kind of sweat-of-the-brow work ethic as is required on the farm - said labor necessary after all in order to raise fine cattle outstanding in their field - the legislature seeks a dedicated source of funding:

The Lottery.

Page Two, Sections Two and Three of HB 1398, describe past and present recipients of gambling money: education; baseball stadiums; exhibition centers within stadiums; and veterans, although in the latter case, this last lottery go-round to support soldiers returning from war to their financially-struggling families netted nothing in the way of significant funds.  Evidently not enough of us scratched lottery tickets leaving the troops and their family to scratch out a sub-existence.   

Now further slicing the pie, HB 1398 – the chicken, kids and cows bill – would take lottery revenue and split the take between state fairs on the one hand and the horse racing commission on the other such that the horses on the farm and the race horses on the track each get fifty-percent.

Given of course you scratch those tickets as presumably money can be spent only after funds have been appropriated.

So prepare to pony-up people.  The kids and their farm animals, after all, are depending on you.