Powerball used to have a jackpot limit. Then it exploded. Who won? Well, for starters, the jackpot was reduced from $1 million to $250 million. But even more importantly, it’s gone from the House to the Senate.
When it was introduced in the House, it was approved unanimously, and when it passed the Senate, it was passed unanimously. That doesn’t seem like much of a change, until you realize:
The maximum jackpot for states that don’t have a lot of snow and ice in their territory can be up to five times the national minimum wage.
It was supposed to be $1 million.
In the House we voted to allow the state of Texas to jackpot itself, and to allow states to jackpot themselves in different states. States could pay the jackpot winner out of their own funds.
It has now passed the Senate.
The Senate vote is a formality. The Senate is not likely to vote to take it away from states.
Why would the Senate even vote on this bill? To raise millions of dollars.
The House bill is a giveaway to states with the most expensive legal jackpots.
But even if it’s passed the Senate, what then?
The House version of the bill allows the state of New York to jackpot itself up to nearly $5 billion. That’s a new record. And then there’s Florida. Why doesn’t Florida jackpot itself? Because the House bill was only supposed to allow states to do so in states with snow and ice. So Florida is still left with a $1 billion jackpot. That’s a lot of snow and ice in Florida.
There’s no end. There’s no end. A national jackpot is now on the table, and we’ve got no way to even get close to the number of people who would sign up for that.
The House bill, in fact, takes another step in the direction of nationalization by allowing the jackpot money to be used as a fund