Don Roach: Trusting Politicians is Like Hoping to Win Powerball's Millions

Don Roach: Trusting Politicians is Like Hoping to Win Powerball's Millions

What would you do with 1.5 billion dollars? Well, I suppose the question is what would you do with approximately $660 million after taxes? That’s a question someone may be fortunate enough to have to think about later tonight when the 1.5billion – with a “b” – Powerball lottery is drawn. There hasn’t been a Powerball winner since November and the ticket frenzy has increased since the prize ballooned to around $400 million a week or so ago. 

What does this have to do with Rhode Island or our political scene? Not much, but if you’re like me, thousands across Rhode Island, and millions across the country you’ve probably been drawn in by the allure of spending just $2 to win an almost unimaginable amount of money.

And that’s why we play.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

There’s a saying that I’ve heard from either gamblers or regarding gambling – you can’t win if you don’t play. But the chances of you, me, or anyone winning the lottery tonight is 1 in 292.2 million. It’s hard to put that into perspective but I’ll try. The odds of you becoming President of the United States is 1 in 10million. That means you are 292 times more likely to be the leader of the free world than you are to win this lottery. Wow.

And yet we still play.

Also, the odds of you becoming a movie star is 1 in 1.5million. Still pretty difficult but if you’re a pharmacist in training who spends your time drawing penguins while dreaming of becoming a movie star, well you’re hundreds of times more likely to become just that than you will win Powerball.

And yet we still play.

Playing the lottery has always felt like closing your eyes and wishing for something to happen. Sure maybe if you get lucky something will happen, but likely you’ll open your eyes and everything will be the same. Think about our pension crisis that plagued the state for years with most people just hoping something would change or probably more appropriate think about the 30 percent or so that elected Lincoln Chafee expecting him to be a good Governor when the majority of us knew there wasn’t much a chance of him being a competent Governor much less a good one. 

And yet still we play.

Perhaps the lottery is a microcosm of how we feel about politics. For many of us we’re just the idiots who bought into something (or someone) and expecting a return to only head to the proverbial gas station to see what if anything we won. And just like with our elected officials, we usually find out that we’ve won nothing and that the gas station attendant is ready and willing to allow us to spend more money on a pipe dream. 

And yet still we play.

So I’m not going to try to tell you not to play or that I haven’t spent a few dollars trying to win myself. But what I will say is this – when we consider the possibility of winning the lottery and the possibility of our elected officials keeping their campaign promises, maybe the lottery isn’t so bad after all. 

I mean the man who promised hope and change delivered his final State of the Union address last night and if you’re like me, you’re not see all the hope and change he talked about in 2008. So maybe a 1 in 292.2 million chance aren’t bad odds after all.

I guess that’s why we still play.

Don Roach is a Young Republican. Please check out his Facebook Page.