The ticket you get is punishment for breaking a law. The law is there “ideally” (I have some other theories as to why the law is really there, but that’s for another thread) to protect people from danger - the danger being that the faster you go, the more accidents and the more people die, statistically.
So if the police/government gave you a preemptory “pass” allowing you to speed, they would be condoning you doing something that would be harmful to other people. That would not be good. People that do not want to speed would make quite a fuss about the government letting them be put in harm’s way.
An (horrible) analogy would be if you could pay a fee and then be allowed to murder someone.
I think that across the board “sin taxes” are placed on things that will cause harm only to yourself (or your soul).
I originally had a comment about the howls of execration from taxing the Idiot Box, but I thought it sounded too flippant. “No, no, no. Don’t tax our MTV!”
I’m not so sure how taxing the Idiot Box would stifle Big Media and cause providers into producing crappier programming—if such could even be possible. The average TV viewer will still the pay cost to get their fix. Very few folks would kick the TV habit because a hundred or two hundred bucks per year in taxes. Sure, a few might, but only a handful.
Still, it would be hard sell. Most folk would like to see taxes on things other folk use—tax the other fellow’s sin, not my sin. Since most folk watch TV, agreeing to the TV tax would increasing your own taxes, so that would be a no go.
I know that Great Britain had a TV tax at one time, and maybe they still do, so it would be interesting to find out the they maintain compliance, and how popular/unpopular the tax is.
Its got to be gambling. There are way, way too many career law enforcement types who have a vested interest in keeping pot illegal. Prostitution will always be seen as dirty, sinful, and horribly destructive to the many conservative religious types that inhabit the country, moreso than the other options I think. So yeah, gambling will be the big sin tax to collect on. You even hear stores in the news a lot lately. They want to add slots to the PA racetrack and to a boat that cruises the Deleware river in my area. So far nobody is seriously talking about legalizing pot. Damn it.
Have we actually done this? “Whats the next sin behaviour to be legalized to bring in tax revenue?” Other than maybe booze? I know we have taxed plenty of minor sins, but have we ever legalized a sin in order to tax it?
I think those theories are relevant to this thread, if they are what I think they are.
Mainly: In many cases, the primary function of speed limits is to raise money for the city or county that enforces them. We’ve all heard of speed traps. In those cases, the local government has an incentive to make the speed limits unreasonably low, to hide the signs behind trees, etc. because they rely on people breaking the law for revenue.
A “speed pass” would achieve the same thing for the local governments, but it’d do it honestly, instead of relying on people to break the law.
That said, I think it would only make sense on highways. Speed limits on city streets are reasonable and necessary, IME.
They still do. But there’s a big difference - their TV license fees pay for the BBC. That’s like getting ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, and CSPAN (plus a couple other TV channels and several radio stations) for free with no commercials.
Congress voted this idiocy in a few years ago…it applied to things like yachts and men’s suits (of over $200.00 value). I forget what the rate was, but it caused the sale of these items to plummet! Congress repealed the tax, but not untill it had put many people out of business!
I vote for:
-a TAX on politician’s incomes…rising to a top rate of 78%!
-a TAX on all lobbying expenditures…at a rate of 75%
-a TAX on all propertiesin the city of Washington, DC , which are used for lobbying organizations (like the ACLU, AIPAC, NRA, etc.) This tax would be in addition to the city taxes
-a hotel tax in the city of Washington, on ALL rooms (tourists would be exempted). This tax would be 25% when Congress is off, rising to 75% when Congress is in session.
-a surtax on all lawyers, amounting to 75% on all earnedincome over $100,000
Yeah, I’m FOR social engineering!
