As a Maryland resident I have to decide how to vote on the state's Question 2 next week, which would legalize slot machines and use the resulting revenue for education. And while the image of seniors throwing their social security checks down the slot machine toilet leaves me a little queasy, I've come to see this as a brilliant solution to the problems identified by radical Robert Samuelson last week. The financial pressure of baby boomers retiring en masse is likely to squeeze tax dollars that otherwise could have gone to the education of our young. So the slot machine solution is perfect, for it simply recoups a chunk of elderly-entitlement spending and hands it over to the next generation. Sure, it's less efficient than just trimming entitlements in the first place, but politics is the art of the possible, right?
