[Arthur Wildfire! March]

It's so clear, so obvious -- a perfect example of the Broken Window's Fallacy in economics.

I may not have agreed with Boortz on everything, but the man was an overall voice of truth.

[Mr. Douglas]

I’ve brought this one up often when sparring with liberals. It’s my personal favorite.

[antidisestablishment]

You mean this Neal Boortz, who is a staunch #NeverTrumper?

I listened to him for years, though I regularly tuned out when he would begin an anti-Christian rant or start promoting the murder of children. Boorzt, as a typical Libertarian, has issues with logic and morality that border on clinical. Deosn't surprise me that he joined the anti-Trump bandwagon—he is always looking for validation. And yes, the yacht tax was bad...

[justlurking]

I remember this. The light aircraft industry was already in trouble, and this tax just made it worse.

But, it killed the custom boat industry. There were a lot of small boat builders along the Atlantic Coast -- family-run operations that had been around for generations.

Yes, some of them built "mega yachts", but most of them were simply upscale sailboats and motor cruisers. The threshold was set so low, it added a significant premium to the sales price.

Boat buyers stopped ordering new boats, and instead bought used boats. The tax improved the used market for a while, so if you were looking to sell an existing boat (and not replace it with a comparable model), you could get a better price.

It was a classic case of unintended consequences, and an object example of Daniel Webster's quote: "An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy".

[OldMissileer]

I have a friend who worked building yachts. He loved the work and earned good pay.

The tax put his company out of business and he has struggled off and on ever since.