1. This is not true.
2. This is true
3. Well, I absolutely am completely 100% apathetic about politics, and I don't even live in the US, but its for me, lump sum is just so much better than annuity. Reason on 4th point
4. It's good you want to stay grounded and not become one of those spend-a-holics. But another thing you should consider is, do you really just want the lottery to benefit yourself? Let's not look so far at saving the world for a sec, that takes a lot of work. But what about family? Unless you're a rothschild or vanderbilt or carnegie, chances are you have some family who is not so well off financially. Don't you want to help them?
What about your children? Sure, you will have financial security, but after the money runs out, your children and grandchildren will go back to being not financially secure; and they'll suffer more because they're used to a more lavish lifestyle. I believe it's important to not only let the money last for you, but to make it grow so that it'll not just last for a few generations, but forever.
Now, some people ask, just how much more can you make from lumpsum vs annuity anyway? Let's take an example. Let's say that 591 million powerball was won 30 years ago. 2 times.
Person A choose the annuity. He got 591 million. But of course, he has to pay taxes. He ends up with 350 million.
Person B choose the lump sum. He got around 210 million after taxes (probably more... I don't know what the taxes were like in the US back then, so I'm assuming current taxes).
Now, person B invests all his money in Johnson's and Johnson's.
30 years later today, person A just finished getting all his payments, and he has 350 million. Person B is now worth over 6 billion dollars.
Even if he invested in gold, silver, macdonalds, walmart, coca cola, or any other big blue chip companies that's been around for a while, he would easily be worth over 2-3 billion dollars now. The difference is huge.