[snopercod]

Bake sale? Oh, how cute...

[otterpond]

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

Let he who is without sin cast the first vote.

[Cvengr]

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

[texas booster]

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.

[goodieD]

why is marriage on that list? oh, I forgot, to liberals marriage IS a sin..

[Blue Screen of Death]

California should tax stupid political ideas.

[boris]

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

[monkeyshine]

"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."

[Zon]

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.