Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Liberalism: Fund pet social(ist) programs by defunding them in the issue

Here's a rather unstimulating example of liberal bassackwards, self-destructive "stimulus" thinking. The idea goes something like this (really!, I'm not making this up):

If you want to grow government and government interference into the lives of individuals, and simultaneously fund a given socialist pet project that you've been itching for years to pass (say, SCHIP), because nobody else is sinful enough to fund it, then what you do is to take a given thing that society, at the given moment in time, finds repulsive (say, tobacco use), and you impose a tax on it which you've previously denominated and thoroughly secured in the minds of the folks, a "sin tax." (There are also things denominated "luxury taxes" - a luxury is, of course, a sin unto itself in liberal society - one of which the Oklahoma legislature wisely repealed a few years ago, but not before it had collected from yours truly an irretrievable hefty fee based on same. Hint: they didn't do this of their own volition, or because of their wisdom.)

Nothing wrong with taxing something society deems as agregiously sinful, right? Well, I suppose not, unless said tax, combined with state and federal taxes already imposed on tobacco use, is so heavy and burdensome on said group that they'll be forced to find ways around having to pay it, i.e., cutting back on their tobacco use, and/or, quitting altogether, etc., there being no other alternative left to their discretion, their all-wise, all-powerful federal masters leaving them no other means of escape.

How brain-dead can these people be? I'm serious! They actually think that they can impose a new federal tax on a product, a tax that is almost double per pound what the product (current state and federal taxes included) costs currently, and this will result in a manifold increase in federal revenue sufficient to fund SCHIP from henceforth and for always, presumably, or at least until the next culturally unacceptable practice, and its practitioners, makes itself/themselves manifest as prime candidates for excessive taxation (say, fast food eaters). This is the very reason, my friends, that the federal government has absolutely no business taxing (or reaching) individuals, or the habits, bad as they may well be, of individuals. Who do you know that doesn't have some bad habits?

Here's my appeal to anyone out there with half a brain cell left: Do you want the central government deciding what is exceedingly sinful and what is not sinful, and taxing you accordingly? If your answer to that question is anything other than an emphatic NO, then I'm afraid you need to seek psychological help, and fast.

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