Income tax IS like that. Don’t want to pay the income tax? Make less than 12,000 per year. What, you like having the extra luxuries? They’re not a necessity you know. So the income tax is completely optional.
And how would you feel if the only people were were taxed were, say, people who lived in a certain suburb? The one YOU live in? The one nobody else likes?
This is the antithesis of what taxes are supposed to do. They are supposed to raise revenue for the government while having as little impact on choices as possible. The worst thing to happen to the notion of taxation was that some people saw it as not only a way to raise money, but as a way to push and mold society into a form that they think is ‘best’.
Or ask yourself this: How will you like this notion of taxing behaviour when a fundy president starts a condom tax, an ‘entertainment tax’ aimed at ‘unwholesome’ entertainment, and an extra ‘urban tax’ to make those godless inner-city heathens pay extra for the legal system? After all, most crime happens in these areas, so your urban lifestyle costs me money.
Or maybe we could do what Chile tried, have a huge ‘communication tax’ that is so high that it drives most newspapers, radios, and internet sites into bankruptcy, but you can get a ‘government tax credit’ if you just play the right kind of songs. In Chile it was a tax on newsprint meant to shut down newspapers opposed to the government.
These things only sound like a good idea when it’s someone else’s axe being gored. Wait 'till they start sharpening the blade on something YOU care about.
Also, the figures on how many people die from smoking isn’t just cancer, ephysema, and other diseases. A lot of smokers die from strokes or from heart attacks, in which case they live to be 50 and their end of life cost is one trip to the ER.
I’m not sure anyone in my family has died after the age of 40 of anything but smoking-realted ilnesses.
Do bear in mind that if you quit smoking you will feel better than you could have imagined. You’ll find that you can breathe, and smell things, and ride a bike across vast distances. If you get the gum, you can avoid the nicotine-withdrawal stupids, too, although you will look kind of like a Bowery Boy.
I can breath just fine. I always take the stairs at work and never have to pant. I can smell just fins as well. Granted, it’s sometimes the stench of gas emitted by those that eat broccoli and alfalfa for lunch, but I can smell it.
And the gum? Develope a gum you can light and I’m there. I like chewing Juicy Fruit, but it doesn’t offer the satisfaction of lighting up a heater.
In a perfect world we’d have nicotine-free smokes and the patch. But you know damn well that would be banned because there would still be smoke. It’s lose-lose for us heathens. We’re a dying breed. (Yes, that was intentional)
And just how do you decide what falls under the category of “essentials” and what falls under “luxuries,” hmm? Who does the deciding? Because everyone has different needs, you know. For instance, clothing: someone who telecommutes might “need” only sweatpants and a T-shirt, whereas someone who works in an office might “need” an Armani suit. Why should the telecommuter have to bear the burden of a higher tax because someone else “needs” better clothing? Likewise, the telecommuter “needs” the Internet to perform their work, while the office worker does not. Would everyone be forced to itemize their needs so we can decide whose expenses are justified and whose are not? Or are we going to fit some sort of one-size-fits-all rubric on the situation? I’m thinking the latter.
Also, this thread is making me mad because it’s making me agree with Sam Stone on almost everything. Damn you, thread!
Nicotine is the single most useful drug in tobacco, as well the the addictive drug. Find a way to deliver the nicotine as needed without the tars, etc., and it would just be another caffeine. Patches don’t cut it; they’re too steady a flow, as well as too small a flow for me.
My point was I like the actual act of smoking. Take the addictive part of it and put it in me by patch or gum, and I’ll still want to flip the top of the pack open, put the heater to my lips, light up and enjoy the actual act of smoking it.
Hell, take the THC out of pot (makes me very anxious) and I’ll smoke that. I just want to smoke, dammit! Maybe smoking hemp?
side thought
Abolish all tobacco taxes and set up hearings to deny health care to smokers on the public dime. All you need is testimony from 3 people that state you smoked at some point to be denied public health assistance. You smoke, you die horribly with no publicly funded health care.
I’ve always wondered just how much of these taxes (tabacco, gas, etc.) actually goes to the causes that “justify” them. I suppose one could study the budget and other records to figure it out. Cigarettes are pretty expensive, and I’d imagine a lot of the price goes to taxes. Do they increase the spending on healthcare when they increase cigarette tax? I sure as hell don’t know.
And I do feel bad that smokers today can’t smoke in so many places. But I can also “feel” when I do breathe second-hand smoke how bad it is for my lungs. The less non-smokers come into contact with second-hand smoke, the less reason to tax tobacco. But some people, such as children of smokers, sometimes have no choice.
As for nicotine vs. caffeine, I sometimes spend months where I drink a lot of strong coffee all day, and then have no problem stopping, cold turkey. But I hear that it’s very difficult to stop smoking nicotine. Also, isn’t it possible to die of nicotine poisoning (not via cigarettes, but via pesticide)? Is it also possible to die of caffeine poisoning?
How is it freedom when a business can’t choose whether or not to allow smoking in THEIR establishment?
We’re not talking government buildings, we’re talking private businesses. Why is it, in this land of freedom and capitalism, we can’t allow a business to-you know-make those decisions?
Even before smoking bans, I knew of businesses that were ‘non-smoking’ establishments, some bars as well. Employees and customers HAD A CHOICE in where they worked/went. The non-smoking establishments did just fine as such.
See, the crazy thing about freedom is that you have choice. Just because a smoking establishment is the ‘cool’ place to go, doesn’t mean you have to go there. Likewise, you don’t have to work there.
That’s my biggest pet peave with this anti-smoking campaign. It may be democratic, but it’s going further along the road of no self-blame and government control of our personal lives.
I can understand anti-pollution laws enacted on businesses, as they affect people without any connection to the business. Smoking though, only affects the people in said establishment directly. And those people have a CHOICE as to whether or not to go/work there.
Are the high European prices predominately due to taxes? I’d imagine the governments would stop raising them once they began to take in less money, something that seems to be the case if so many are importing.
