Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

'Sin taxes' amount to 'bake sale' for budget [California]
Orange County Register ^ | June 14, 2002 | HANH KIM QUACH

Posted on 06/15/2002 4:18:28 AM PDT by snopercod

Edited on 04/14/2004 10:05:12 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

From bullets to Bordeaux, plans aim to get voters to tax others' proclivities.

SACRAMENTO - That glass of merlot would cost you an extra nickel. Plinking with a .22 would be about 50 cents more per magazine than it is today. Smokers? You might want to budget another 65 cents per pack.


(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: alcoholtax; ammunitiontax; computertax; fattax; marriagetax; tvtax
Bake sale? Oh, how cute...
1 posted on 06/15/2002 4:18:28 AM PDT by snopercod
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: snopercod
all of us consume something that someone else thinks is a sin.

Let he who is without sin cast the first vote.

2 posted on 06/15/2002 4:26:17 AM PDT by otterpond
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: snopercod
How about a $100 tax per sale of a rainbow flag? Send the money to support the Salvation Army.
3 posted on 06/15/2002 4:30:40 AM PDT by Cvengr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cvengr
Oooh, how terrible! How about taxing the mind of the politicians that think up all these robbery schemes. Being mentally challenged should be worth something to the public.
4 posted on 06/15/2002 4:43:02 AM PDT by meenie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: snopercod
Tax buyers of any device with a cathode ray tube up to $30 to help the state dispose of them. A new program would educate people about the hazards of disposing the tubes.

That means the death of low end tubes for concumers, and the adoption of flat panel screens. Who wants to pay $30 tax on a product that costs $99?

Also, what is the State's role in disposal? Do they collect money and pass it onto the city landfill? Do they pay to transport the old CRTs to Mexico or China?

If the State's role is "education", then this is little more than than a boondoggle for the media. Remember all of the money the Feds spent during x42's years on "public education" (drugs, pollution, etc)? Nothing but a payoff to the media as they made media buys at full rates, and a payoff to local pols who received some free advertising.

If the State just collects the money, disposal programs will never see meaningful assistance as the money is siphoned off into pet projects.

5 posted on 06/15/2002 4:55:30 AM PDT by texas booster
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: snopercod
why is marriage on that list? oh, I forgot, to liberals marriage IS a sin..
6 posted on 06/15/2002 8:03:18 AM PDT by goodieD
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: snopercod
California should tax stupid political ideas.
7 posted on 06/15/2002 8:06:29 AM PDT by Blue Screen of Death
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Blue Screen of Death
If California could taX the state legislature, guv and fat bureaucrats for their sins alone .. they would be self-perpetuating .. we wouldn't need an income or sales tax

DUMP DAVI$ & the Den of Socialists
By the way, anyone wanna buy some half-baked politicians?


GO SIMON

8 posted on 06/15/2002 8:30:38 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: snopercod
The ammo tax is meant to neatly fit together with a federal law in the works to prohibit interstate sales of ammunition. Right now it is perfectly legal to buy ammo by internet, fax, phone, email, snail mail, smoke signal, carrier pigeon, telegram, and amateur radio. The feds are working hard to outlaw that--and (how convenient!) Perata is right there with a CA law to tax in-state sales of ammunition once the Feds have made it illegal to buy it from out of state. Pure coincidence, I assure you!

--Boris

9 posted on 06/15/2002 8:33:45 AM PDT by boris
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: snopercod
"If you don't want to pay that tax, don't do the activity do the activity in another state, or on an indian reservation."
10 posted on 06/15/2002 11:44:18 AM PDT by monkeyshine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: monkeyshine
Exactly.

Remember when Not-So-Great Britain slapped a "beer tax" on the public? People are still taking vans and motor homes across the channel and buying beer on the dock, then bringing back back hundreds of cases at a time "for personal consumption".

...making and selling beer in Britain is held in a vice by the fact that brewers have to pay seven or eight times as much duty on beer than their opposite numbers in France. In France 5p of the cost of a pint goes in duty, in this country its 31 per cent.

As a result, thousands go on "booze cruises" every day to Calais to stock up with cheap French and Belgian lager. Twelve cans of Stella Artois that will set you back £14 in Britain cost just £4 in a Calais hypermarket.

There's a more sinister side to cheap, imported beer. The infamous white transit vans that go to and fro on the Shuttle between Folkestone and Calais every day are selling on cheap beer to car boot sales and dubious drinking clubs. A lot of the trade is now in the hands of criminals who use the profits from cheap imported beer to fund far more dangerous drugs than alcohol.

The equivalent of the entire annual production of two large English regional breweries comes into the country every year through the Channel ports. That amounts to all the beer brewed by Greene King and Wolverhampton & Dudley combined. Is it any wonder that regional brewers in Britain are suffering, are severely under capacity, and several have pulled down the shutters in recent years?


11 posted on 06/15/2002 3:18:34 PM PDT by snopercod
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: snopercod
The liberals are now on a jihad against life's simpler pleasures.
12 posted on 06/15/2002 3:19:56 PM PDT by goldstategop
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: otterpond
Let he who is without sin cast the first vote.

That's really an interesting quote there on many levels, since.


13 posted on 06/15/2002 3:23:27 PM PDT by snopercod
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Cvengr
How about a $100 tax per sale of a rainbow flag? Send the money to support the Salvation Army.

ROFL! ...or how about a $5 per condom tax to support AIDS research?

14 posted on 06/15/2002 3:25:08 PM PDT by snopercod
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: texas booster
Well see all those Cathode Ray Tubes are "filled" with a vacuum, just like the heads of the California legislators.

What's supposed to be the "hazard" in disposing of them, anyway?

15 posted on 06/15/2002 3:27:57 PM PDT by snopercod
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Blue Screen of Death
California should tax stupid political ideas.

They would have a windfall there if they could find a way. Socialism has failed everywhere and everytime it has been tried, but suckers keep falling for it.

I guess it's another example of nature weeding out the stupid states...

16 posted on 06/15/2002 3:32:16 PM PDT by snopercod
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
The liberals are now on a jihad against life's simpler pleasures.

...and life itself, if you get right down to it. Just about every one of their initiatives results in people dying. The DDT ban is a perfect example. CAFE standards are another.

17 posted on 06/15/2002 3:36:25 PM PDT by snopercod
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: snopercod
What happens in federal government is often mirrored in state governments. For example, politicians and bureaucrats create about 3,000 new laws each year. Every one they proclaim is a must have law or regulation -- that people and society can't live without them. But how is it that people and society have prospered for years and decades prior to each year's new set of 3,000 laws. And, prospered in spite of thousands of previously-created laws.

Citizens and society don't need them. The only people that need 3,000 laws and regulations each year are the politicians and bureaucrats that create them. Created to justify their unearned paychecks. Yet still, each new law or regulation that doesn't protect individual rights or property rights is a drain on citizens and society.

Thinking about it that way, prosperity would dramatically increase if no new unnecessary laws were created and instead more laws were repealed than new laws created.

The numbers are somewhat changed for California's government as well as other state governments. Each state probably creating, by comparison, a mere five hundred new and mostly unnecessary laws and regulations each year.

Parasitical Elite vs. Prosperity Creators

If civilization had to chose between business/science and government/bureaucracy, eliminating the other, which is the better choice?

The first thing civilization must have is business/science. It's what the family needs so that its members can live creative, productive, happy lives. Business/science can survive, even thrive without government/bureaucracy.

Government/bureaucracy cannot survive without business/science. In general, business/science and family is the host and government/bureaucracy is a parasite.

Aside from that, keep valid government services that protect individual rights and property. Military defense, FBI, CIA, police and courts. With the rest of government striped away those few valid services would be several fold more efficient and effective than they are today. 

Underwriters Laboratory is a private sector business that has to compete in a capitalist market. Underwriters laboratory is a good example of success where government fails.

Any government agency that is a value to the people and society could better serve the people by being in the private sector where competition demands maximum performance.

Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us.

18 posted on 06/15/2002 4:34:47 PM PDT by Zon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson