Alabamians are acutely aware that there is a sizable red number when it comes to Alabama’s General Fund. The General Fund, a resource used to pay for essentials like road construction, has taken hits ever since the recession. Estimations during the 2014 elections placed us about 265 million dollars short in funds for the upcoming year alone.

The estimations were wrong.

Merely days after the elections ended, Governor Robert J. Bentley informed Alabamians that – whoops, our bad – we’re short about $700 million. To cover the insufficiency Bentley presented the prospect of ‘raising taxes’ – two words that could have cost him the election.

Among his taxation plans are doubling taxation on tobacco and alcohol, as well as raising taxes on essentials like gas.

In situations of financial deficiency tax hikes are not out of the ordinary. Government and Economics teacher Jason Edwards said, “When your expenditures exceed your revenue, you need to raise taxes.” Some reactions aren’t as subtle.

District 2 Senator Bill Holtzclaw responded by purchasing a billboard on University Drive which reads, “Governor Bentley wants to raise your taxes. I will not let that happen. Semper Fi – Senator Bill Holtzclaw.”

To counter the Senator, John Cooper of the Department of Transportation pulled 100 million dollars in funding from road efforts being made in District 2. The controversial efforts are primarily widening Jeff Road and Highway 53. He commented, “If Senator Holtzclaw is that concerned with taxes he probably would be uncomfortable with us spending tax money in his district…” Holtzclaw’s district including, you guessed it, Home of the Patriots.

There are many alarming aspects of these events. First among them is jobs. With 100 million dollars worth of funding being taken hostage by Cooper, potential business and construction jobs could become collateral damage. These jobs, in addition to the others that fell victim to the vicious 12 percent budget cuts that have happened over the last four years, paint a grim picture for Alabama’s unemployment.

But have no fear, raising taxes isn’t the only possible solution. The discussion of Alabama becoming a lottery state has been open for years now. Jason Edwards said, “Either you raise taxes or you start a lottery. If you’re smart, you’ll do both.”

Patrick Brady, a senior at Bob Jones High School commented, “I think a lot of people don’t want a lottery because of religion. Some people say, ‘You’re throwing away your money when you could be spending it on other things.’ But that’s their decision – that’s a religion.”

When it comes to making money through gambling, everyone’s a critic. But the best arguments against the lottery wouldn’t be religion, it would be the casinos and patrons themselves. By voting for a lottery Alabama would be promoting a monopoly corporation that preys on the lower class, then callously excusing their actions by saying, “Well no one made them gamble.” When in reality locations are chosen and ads are geared to make the underprivileged do just that. Beyond this, even with a lottery Alabama would still come up short. Lotteries only bring in tens of millions of dollars when Alabama needs hundreds of millions. This is not to say the revenue isn’t welcome, simply that the revenue wouldn’t be enough.

Alabama’s budget gap isn’t just a big problem, it’s a big burden, and someone will have to carry that weight whether it’s the gamblers or the taxpayers.