[jeffk]

This is a very sad story but you will find many like it (No food, no heat, no house, 5 kids to feed, no car ) in every state in the US. I doubt the old man's property tax was large. The reality was he probably couldn't afford any property tax bill. Any government needs to make accommodations for those in dire straights. The failure here, and I think that NH is pretty harsh in this regard, is that there is little flexibility to handle situations like this. If you live in NH you better be pretty self reliant. However, there is a caution as well. I have heard many sad stories about people unable to make ends meet for one reason or another and it bothers me a lot. Many times I have helped where I could. But too many times I have also found out that the problems that the people faced were of their own making or they were unwilling to make sacrifices necessary to make things work out. This is where welfare lead us, we felt bad so we tried to help everybody by taking people's money in taxes and redirecting it to those we felt were in need. The problem was that we made it too easy to live on welfare and the system became a nightmare. In this particular case maybe something needed to be done to help.

As for Senator Gregg, he played the lottery like millions do and was lucky. He paid the taxes he owed and like all other NH winners paid nothing to the state. If your argument is that all lottery winners should pay some NH tax, that's a point to discuss. If your argument is that only poor people should be able to win the lottery that's hogwash. I don't see a connection between the old man and Senator Gregg's winnings. By your logic, all lottery winnings should be confiscated to pay for welfare needs because all lottery wins are "easy money". I don't think many people would play the lottery under those rules.