The American Freedom Network

Finally! A couple of taxes I like!

    States are revenue-hungry, even in good times.  A declining economy has them scrambling to find money to replace lower tax receipts.  The usual victims of such situations are the politically unpopular minorities – tobacco and alcohol producers and sellers, and their customers.  I oppose further taxes on either group.  (For the record, i drink beer, but do not touch liquor or tobacco.)
     Some new tax ideas actually have merit, however:  As you’ll see here, a Washington state legislator failed in his bid to tax porn.  I think that it’s a lovely idea, especially since the cost of vice to our society is so high.  Let Larry Flynt & co. pay their fair share.  That’s that much less they’ll have to spend on  lobbying the government for special treatment.  Marijuana is another target – in California.  I support that, too, if sale and personal use is decriminalized for adults, as it would have to be, in order to tax it.  This would have the double effect of raising revenue and reducing expenses, as the so-called “War on Drugs” would be greatly reduced in scope, as it should be, since it is a manifest failure.
     Let me add one more tax target to the list:  gambling.  We let “Indian” tribes of often dubious authenticity open casinos all over Michigan, and other states do, too.  We reap vitrually no benefit, but many Americans are enticed into gratifying a bad habit, and end up on the dole – public or private – after ruining their lives.  This writer recalls a story in one of the Detroit papers to the effect that 7% of Wayne County residents were “problem gamblers.”  It’s high time that casinos paid their fair share of the cost for the burdens imposed on society by the vice that they exploit.  (If the “Indian” tribes want to claim soverign immunity from state taxation, then they should be subject to a tariff, as any foreign power would be, in the absence of a free-trade agreement.)  As with taxing the pornographers,raising taxes on the casinos would also dry up some of the money that goes into their lobbying efforts to secure their special privlidges. 
     In conclusion, while I do not like taxes, per se, I do recognize, as a non-anarchist, that the necessary functions of government (“guarding the coast and toting the mail,” basically) cost money, and I’d rather tax the purveyors of vice and smut, along with ending the so-called “war on Drugs,” than continue to beat up on smokers and wine drinkers, let along taxing the producers in our society.  As Jack Kemp used to say, if you tax something, you get less of it; ikf you subsidize something, you get more of it.  That’s a simple rule to keep in mind as we debate how to fund those portions of the government that should survive the budget axe in the era of scarcity that we will live in for the forseeable future.