In the debate about yearly deficits, long-term debts, taxes and tax cuts only one thing is certain: people don’t like to pay taxes.
Not really. Each year Americans freely choose to pay a 54 billion dollar tax! They pay this tax on top of their standard city, state and federal taxes. What’s more curious about this tax is that there is no need to enforce the tax laws. In fact, there are no tax laws.
This tax is the state lottery.
Here are some data. According to National Conference of State Legislatures, in 2006 Americans spent $53.8 billion on lottery tickets, won $34.7 billion and lotteries contributed revenues of $16.9 billion to their respective states.
The key to why this tax is so popular is that the behavioral contingency associated with that tax is not a threat of punishment but a promise of a reward.
In my Intro Psych courses I tell my students that positive reinforcement has a much more potent effect on behavior than punishment and then I give them this thought experiment: we currently use punishment to enforce traffic laws; how would we use positive reinforcement to enforce those same laws? Even my brightest students are baffled and very hesitantly answer, ‘give people money for obeying the speed limit.’
That’s right! I (with the confidence given to me by the ghost of B.F. Skinner) describe a situation where police cars would be equipped with – along with the red flashing lights – a green smiley-face light. If the police catch you obeying the speed limit they flip on the green light and if you have the time you can stop to get a $100 bill. The first comment from students is that there are not enough police to reward everyone. I answer that there doesn’t need to be: give the lengths people go to win the lottery (a $54 billion length) people would be watching their speedometers for the chance at the $100 bill.
