Email insights: Rick Burgess weighs in on an Alabama Lottery

Last week the Alabama Legislature began its 2016 legislative session and once again lawmakers in Montgomery are scrambling for creative fixes to the state’s ongoing budget shortfall.

A solution brought up repeatedly? A state lottery to help generate revenue.

Nearly 17 years after then-Gov. Don Siegelman‘s lottery for education was narrowly rejected by voters, lawmakers are calling for a lottery referendum in hopes of getting a lottery initiative on the ballots this November.

Which is why Wednesday, the Alabama Policy Institute (API) — a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to influencing public policy in the interest of the preservation of free markets — released their first installment in a video series featuring Alabamians speaking out against gambling.

The first video features Rick Burgess, the bestselling author and cohost of the nationally syndicated “Rick and Bubba Show.”

Check out the full email from API and their first video:

The Alabama Policy Institute is proud to announce the release of the first installment of a video series featuring Alabamians speaking out against gambling. Gambling is perennially proposed as an easy and benign “fix” for the Alabama budget. It is nothing of the sort, however, whether in the form of casino gaming or a state-run lottery.

Rick Burgess, the bestselling author and cohost of the nationally syndicated “Rick and Bubba Show,” is featured in this first installment. Burgess explains why a state-run lottery is a “lazy plan” for legislators to take up.

Future installments have already been filmed and will appear in the weeks ahead.