It has often been suggested that Texas expand state-controlled gambling to increase state revenue in order to address the funding priorities du jour. For instance, one group suggested that gambling is a good way to “generat[e] more tax revenue for the state” in order to “rectify the anticipated budget imbalance.” However, turning to gambling for more government revenue is wrong on several counts.
No Regulation Without Representation
When the Sons of Liberty stormed ships docked in Boston to throw taxed tea into the harbor, they had a simple animating principle guiding their actions: no taxation without representation. Decades later, similar resistance to an unrepresentative and far away government propelled Texans to fight the Mexican dictator Santa Ana. In both cases, the core...