Articles and Videos – Page 721

State Lottery Still Overspending on Prizes, Undercutting Scholarships

May 25, 2021Jerry CoxArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery

The Arkansas Lottery recently released its financial report for the month of April.

The report shows the Arkansas Lottery took in more than $65.5 million last month. However, less than $12.3 million went to scholarships — about 19 cents out of every dollar the Arkansas Lottery made.

The report also shows the Arkansas Lottery spent nearly $47 million on prizes for lottery players. That’s approximately 71.6% of the lottery’s revenue.

For perspective, the typical state lottery budgets approximately 25% – 30% of its revenue for education and about 60% for prizes.

Recently, S.B. 649 by Sen. Charles Beckham (R – McNeil) and Rep. Richard Womack (R – Arkadelphia) would have required the Arkansas Lottery to increase the percentage of its revenue budgeted for scholarships to 25% over the next six years.

This would have brought the Arkansas Lottery up to the standards of the typical state-run lottery — and it most likely would have provided millions of additional dollars in scholarship funding.

However, the legislation failed to pass, and the Arkansas Lottery is still operating irresponsibly.

Click here to see the Arkansas Lottery’s April financial reports.

ACLJ Files Brief in Support of Arkansas’ Pro-Life Law

May 24, 2021Jerry CoxAbortionAbortion

Earlier this month the American Center for Law and Justice filed an amicus brief in support of Arkansas’ law that prohibits abortions performed solely because the baby may have Down Syndrome — Act 619 of 2019.

At the time that Act 619 passed, Family Council estimated that the law could save upwards of 100 unborn children in Arkansas every single year.

The law has been tangled up in court ever since, and the State of Arkansas currently is blocked from enforcing it.

In April Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the nation’s highest court to take up the case.

So far 22 state attorneys general as well as sitting congressmen and U.S. senators have filed briefs in support of the law. Now the American Center for Law and Justice has come out in defense of the law as well.

The ACLJ brief notes:

[T]here are countless instances in which parents were told a child would be born with severe or fatal disabilities, when in fact the child turned out to be either perfectly healthy or had manageable, or even only minor, conditions. This has specifically happened regarding a false diagnosis of Down syndrome or related maladies.

This could turn out to be a landmark abortion case, because it has the potential to reshape how federal judges treat pro-life laws like Act 619 of 2019.

It could give the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn past rulings like Roe v. Wade or Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

That would be a huge victory for pro-lifers in Arkansas — and everywhere else in America.

Read the ACLJ’s brief here.

The Population Bomb Bombs

May 24, 2021John StonestreetCulture, Current EventsCulture, Current Events, Family, Marriage

*John Stonestreet, Radio Host and Director of the Colson Center*

Recently, the New York Times reported that U.S. population growth is now at its second lowest rate in history. Lower birth rates devastate a country’s ability to ward off labor shortages, compete economically, and take care of its elderly.

The question is, why is this happening now?

One overlooked factor is the power of bad ideas: particularly the treatment of sex as a commodity, commitment as optional, and children as a burden. Children are often seen today as obstacles, not blessings, getting in the way of making money and satisfying our desires.

But this view misses the awesome responsibility and source of immense joy children are. Every person bears the image of God, so whenever families produce children, they mirror God to the world. Sure kids are sometimes irritating, but they’re often hilarious, and they always remind us that life isn’t about ourselves.

That’s a message a culture on the brink of a demographic crisis desperately needs to hear.