LIA: Tell us about the lottery. If we get the lottery, what's it going to do for the students that you're talking about sending to college?
Sparks: What I'd like to do is pass enabling legislation so that you would know exactly what the lottery is going to do. What I'd like to do with the money that the lottery would bring in is give a student, if he gets a high school diploma or a GED, an opportunity to further his education. Now, I don't know how much the lottery is going to bring in. We could look at other states and see -- it's going to bring in more than we're getting today. And I know I've been criticized for not giving a number but if I give a figure and it turns out to be wrong, I'll be criticized for that. I want to make sure that we have some money. That if you have a grandchild or you have a daughter or a son and that you are working for minimum wage, is that we give them some hope. If they stay in school and stay out of trouble we're going to give them a scholarship. It's not exactly like the HOPE Scholarship in Georgia. They go A-B. Well, I like A-B but I don't want to drop those children that may be a C or a D. A "D" child in our schools, certainly we don't want to encourage that, but we've got to be realistic. I don't want to drop nobody through the crack.
I want to give them a vocational, trade, union or non-union, apprentice training, working with the labor halls across Alabama. I want to give people an opportunity to make a living. That's my vision. Today we're spending millions of dollars in other states buying lottery tickets. In Alabama we're not. I mean in Alabama we're not getting any money. And I just want us to get our money
LIA: So you're not proposing a full-ride scholarship, but you're proposing something, depending on the amount of money.
Sparks: I would hope that it would be a full ride.
LIA: Kind of like getting financial aid
Sparks: Exactly. I would hope that it would generate enough that it wold be a full ride. But if it does not generate enough money, we should at least take care of a large portion of their education. Look at the PACT program. People invested in that program, they said we're going to invest in
LIA: What I think I'm hearing is that there's just flat not enough money. Which I think is what you've been saying was we need more revenue from somewhere. So you're proposing a lottery that's going to go for scholarships and to tax the gambling that we already have or perhaps put it up to the people to legalize more gambling ...
Sparks: Absolutely. Ohio just passed four casinos this week and they voted them down. I don't think that I should be a person to tell you what you should and should not do. I shouldn't tell you how much beer you should drink this weekend and I shouldn't tell you how many cigarettes you should smoke, and I shouldn't tell you that if you want to go gamble,that's your form of recreation, that you shouldn't do it. But if you do it in Alabama, we ought to tax you acccordingly, we ought to tax you adequately. That's been the problem in Alabama, is that we've had it, but we just haven't been taxing it. We've got the Poarch Creek Indians that are a business. That is not a rogue organization. These are people that have done they best they can do with what they have been given by the federal government and they've found a way to make a profit. They educate their children, they take care of their health care. They do good things. They want to be a part of society, they want to be part of state government. And they're willing to sign a compact. And it's not a secret, but they want to be able to compete with Biloxi. Why shouldn't they compete with Biloxi? Why shouldn't they? I say they should. Let the people decide whether they want to go to exit 57 or whether they want to go on to Biloxi.
You know, I'm going to take this a little step further. The question always comes to Democrats, are you pro choice or are you pro-life? Personally I'm tired of that question. We've answered that question for the last 30 years and go on and do absolutely nothing about it. Teen-age pregnancies are continuing to go up. Killings in out neighborhoods -- in Montgomery yesterday, or this week, a young boy was shot down in cold blood. Crystal meth is being made by the tons. We don't have a task force to stop that but we have one to stop bingo gambling. Where are our priorities? Is it in our neighborhoods? Is it in our young children? Where are our priorities? And as a governor I have a different set of priorities. And I would hope it would be a set of priorities that would move this state in a positive way.
And it's tough choices. It's not easy to walk through the grocery store sometimes when you run up on a person that disagrees with you, whether it's gambling or whatever it may be. I want to move this state forward. I want to give every child an opportunity for an education. I want to give every child an early childhood. We've got to refocus that priority. We've got to implement the 21st century framework so that our children can compete globally. Those are things that I have a vision on and if they don't work, then people ought to vote me out. I believe in the vote of the people. The first time I ran for commisioner of Agriculture, I didn't have a dime in my bank account to run. I ran on sweat, hard work, speaking and going to work during the day, campaigning at night, carrying a good message that eventually sold. It allowed me to get elected and then I was able to do some things that otherwise I wasn't able to do.
LIA: I think you mentioned the rate at which you would tax gambling.
Sparks: It would be comparable to what our neighboring states are doing. I would not give some kind of a backdoor deal. We're going to be fair. We're going to look at what other states are doing and we're going to be equal to that.
LIA: And the money would go to the education trust fund ...
Sparks: And Medicaid.
LIA: and Medicaid. And that's it. That's the gambling tax money, the lottery would go for scholarships.
Sparks: Then casinos would be a whole new ballgame
LIA: Is that where the disaster relief for farmers would come in?
Sparks: Absolutely. And the reason for that is this. ... I've lived through a number of natural disasters. Matter of fact I'll give you an example. You know the lady that President Obama just appointed Surgeon General? I gave her $5000 for medicine to help the people, the patients of Bayou LaBatre because she was doing it for free.
LIA: How did you do that?
Sparks: I put a fundraiser together in Montgomery, Alabama. I brought my friends in from North Alabama called the group Alabama. I brought Jamie Johnson in and I brought some songwriters in. This happened within a 7 day period of time. I raised $100,000. I gave a third of it to the governor's office, I gave a third of it to the mayor's office and I kept a third of it. And we've used that money to do these kind of projects.
This is the second post arising from an interview we conducted with Agriculture and Industries Commissioner 
