Another tax on the poor
US Governments are turning to taxes on the poor to make up their shortfalls. The Congress has just passed a new SCHIP bill that expands coverage to middle class children whose parents are too cheap to buy their own health insurance. They fund it with a cigarette tax increase. Now I read in the Washington Times that states are increasingly turning to gambling, lotteries and casinos to make up their shortfalls;
Proposals to allow or expand slots or casinos are percolating in at least 14 states, tempting legislators and governors at a time when many must decide between cutting services and raising taxes.
Gambling has hard-core detractors in every state, but when the budget-balancing alternatives lawmakers must consider include reducing education funding or raising sales taxes, resistance is easier to overcome, political analysts said.
The libertarian in me is conflicted. On the one hand, I welcome the alternative to taxing me for my earnings and since I’m socially and morally opposed to gambling, it’ll never get a penny from my pocket. On the other hand, I don’t like the idea of more government regulations and the government intrusion, nor the idea that the tax is targeted at those who can least afford to waste their money. Inevitably it’ll lead to more problems with my tax dollars bailing out those clowns who foolishly spent their rent on the slot machines.
Of course, these programs are eventually all doomed to fail. When cigarettes are so expensive that no one can afford to buy them, who’s going to pay the cost of the new additions to SCHIP? When States become addicted to gambling profits, what are they going to do with windfall? Put it away for a rainy day? Hell, no, they’ll spend it so that when the money falls off eventually they’ll end up raising taxes to feed their insatiable appetites for free taxpayer dollars.
Of course, if governments cut out all of the ancillary stuff they don’t need to do, they could cut spending and not need to come up with wild schemes designed to cheat folks out of their money. But we’d need to change the culture before we can change the government.
Category: Politics
How ironic:
http://www.smokefree.gov/
I have lived in several states that siphoned gambling money into the general fund. After the intial peak in revenue there was always a downturn as the novelty wore off. The state of course has already spent the expected income and fines itself in the unique position of encouraging, through advertizing and promotions, increased gambling, and having to deal with gambling addiction caused by encouraging more gambling.
Of course the idea of actually spend less to adjust for the loss of income never occurs the them…
These nanny-state turds know no limits in their quest for your money. Now, an increased booze tax is in the works. These taxes are horribly regressive, target working-class Americans, and attempt to “curb behavior” which the federal government has no business doing.
Ha! “The libertarian in me is conflicted” … that’s a good one, Jonn.
Jonn wrote: Just to be clear, I said Libertarian.so I’m not in the Libertine class with you.
Same crap happened in Maine. the state raised the price of a pack and calculated it would generate $97 million in revenue. Rather than wait for the money to come in, they spent it and when the inevitable happened, you know, people STOPPED smoking because of the cost, or cut back on their purchases. the state only drew in some $79 million, leaving it with a $13 million dollar oops.
Our sh!thead of a governor, John Baldacci, took out a massive loan from some investment company against the state’s future lottery earnings. No frikkin’ sh!t. The money we make off the state lottery is going to pay off the massive interest bills from the loan, and the principle was already spent months ago on nanny-state programs for multi-child welfare mothers who have learned, generationally, how to game the system to keep from having to work.
Mine is so broke that even Canada wouldn’t allow it to join them, even though they are both pretty socialist in nature. If you want to know what America will look like after 4 years on the current administration, just come to Maine. We attract welfare folks from all over the nation. Honestly, they come here because it’s easier to get a hand out than anywhere else. Good Lord, Catholic Charities sends Somali and Iraqi refugees to Maine by the frikkin’ BUSLOAD, and gives them instruction sheets on where to go to apply for housing, foodstamp and legal assistance when they get here.
The next revolution is coming and to my mind, it can’t start fast enough. I would pack myself and my daughter and move out of this state, but I can’t save enough money to do it. The state fins a way to tax or take anything I might have left.
Jonn “change the culture”.I agree.Learn some discipline.Tax obesity and those looking to die of emphysema.As far as gambling, there is little difference between the lottery and the stock market(except the suits).
They tax a vice that I myself have. I smoke. But since the taxes on cigarettes is climbing like a Saturn V, I will have to quit, which is probably a good thing. And when we quit in large numbers, there goes the revenue stream. The liberal mindset will then find something else to tax, or just raise income taxes. And you ought to see what I pay on $16.70 an hour, at least for the next 2 or so months. I work at an aircraft plant in Wichita.
Haha, you don’t know me Jonn, so it’s unfair to classify me as libertine.
Regardless, I can easily see you identifying with those “cosmopolitan” libertarians like those at the Cato Institute or Reason…at least on some issues. Hell, they support overt warfare, which has been (and will always be) your signature issue.