Delegate Ben Cline questions VA lottery on wasteful spending

Should the Virginia lottery pay Donald Trump half-a-million dollars for his picture to appear on lottery tickets? How about $800,000 for use of the name "Deal or No Deal" and Howie Mandel's image? Delegate Ben Cline (R-Rockbridge) says no, and has exposed what he considers wasteful spending of money that could be used for education, the intent of lottery proceeds.

The Waynesboro News Virginian backed Delegate Cline which brought questions from lottery officials.

Yesterday's editorial in the NV followed up on the issue as they reemphasized their backing of Delegate Cline in his pursuit of cost-cutting efforts for the Commonwealth.

Miffed by our editorial last week backing state Del. Ben Cline’s push to halve what he described as a $26 million advertising budget, a Virginia Lottery official fired off a missive that we published Sunday disputing the figure. Lottery officials say the advertising budget is $20 million, not $26 million.

Cline tells us he arrived at the latter figure in consultation with House Appropriations Committee budget writers, who, presumably, know a thing or two about budgets. Lottery officials in response told reporter Bob Stuart that they simply defined the advertising budget more narrowly than did Cline. We’ll stick with the House and Cline on this one.

Read the entire editorial here.