sigh, I can’t let this go unchallenged. It’s not just a matter of being “too fucking lazy to work” (although I’m sure it is in some cases) it can also be a matter of just not having the money for health insurance. If the choice is between buying health insurance and paying rent, paying the premiums or buying groceries which are more immediate neccesities the immediate neccesity is going to take precedence. What if you’re unlucky enough to get laid off, through no fault of your own, and then just happen to get sick shortly afterwards? What if you find a new job and get sick within three months (before most companies will begin to cover you)?
You have to eat to live, thus you must earn. People also *need * clothing, shelter, and soem form of transportation to said work. Thus, earning enough money for the basic nessesities isn’t “voluntary”.
You don’t *have * to drink, smoke, gamble or buy a gas-guzzler.
Me, I’m all for “sin taxes”. I don’t smoke much, but I do pay a goodly chunk in alcohol taxes. As far as I’m concerned, taxing luxury items is a good way to go. Far better, certainly, than taxing food or clothing. Better in my eyes, too, than high property taxes. Taxes on luxury items are not hindering anyone from getting food, clothing or shelter. Yes, there are exceptions (e.g., people who are stupid enough to blow their paycheck on booze instead of paying the rent), but in general it’s true.
On the other hand, the whole demonization of smoking has gotten way out of hand. Many people seem to have forgotten the toxicology principle that the dosage makes the poison. Someone who is smoking next to you at the bus stop outside is not going to kill you. The diesel fumes from the passing busses are probably a worse hazard.
I’d be fine with adding ‘eat crappy food’ to the list of sins that are taxable, and I say that as a person who eats more than the occasional bit of fast food. In fact, in Canada, snack food is taxed where basic groceries are not, so we already do this to some extent.
I suspect the difficulty with that sort of regulation would simply be in defining it. What’s the fast food difference between the Pizza Pizza chain store on one side of the street and the Ecuadorian BBQ take-out on the other? One serves chain glop pizza of minimal nutritional value, and the other serves a fairly well balanced meal complete with veggies and protein. You can make bad choices at both places and end up with minimal nutritional value, and good choices at both (though they’re few and far between at Pizza Pizza) and end up with something not half bad for you.
Something like eating, which is inherently necessary is much harder to divide into ‘good’ and ‘bad’, though, than things like gambling and smoking which are not necessary. So it’s relatively straightforward to slap a sin tax on booze or ciggies and they do.
We’ve done this before. Cigarette taxes are a tiny portion of overall tax revenues and the state could do just fine without them. Smokers are carrying more than their share of the weight, but the difference is pretty small. I can run the numbers again if anyone is interested. A quick look at Pennsylvania department of Revenue release for January has the following to say.
118.3 million / 2.2 billion = ~5% for the month for all the “sin” taxes combined. Smoking is probably not even half that because far more people drink than smoke. Overall, year to date, 778 million / 13.1 billion = ~6% in sin taxes.
If this difference had to be made up with other forms of taxation it would take only very small hikes to do it.
