They tax horses, don't they?
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Last week, a New Hampshire legislator proposed a $25-a-head tax on horses. It's not such a crazy idea. Dogs are taxed, through licenses. This proposal never left the gate, however, trampled by irate nag owners in the tax-free-or-die Granite State.
With government revenues hobbled, cities and states are dreaming up ever more exotic excise taxes, which are targeted taxes on goods rather than on income. Chicago has a now-famous bottled water tax. Ski lift tickets, veterinary bills, and tattoos are entering the realm of taxable commodities. You may remember we fought a revolution over the question of the state's right to impose such taxes. Maybe we will again.
Here in Massachusetts, King Deval I is priming the excise tax pump. He wants to bump the tax on alcohol, and on childhood addictions as well: candy and soda. (I assume Dr Pepper will qualify for a medical exemption.) In a textbook example of beggar-thy-neighbor economics, Patrick proposes to build toll booths on the highways leading outside the state. Pay to visit Rhode Island? I don't think so.
The bigger the state, the grander the budget deficit, the larger the proposed excise bite. California has considered a $1.80 surtax on a six-pack of beer and an 8-cent tax on digital downloads, including ringtones, iTunes, and pornography. There has even been talk of a confiscatory exit tax on people who leave the state because of . . . high taxes. A proposed 25 percent tax on goods sold at "adult entertainment venues" brought strippers and porn stars to Sacramento to protest the levy.
Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union directed me to the Nevada Brothel Owners Association, whose chief lobbyist, George Flint, has been widely quoted asking to be taxed by the state. "By being taxed they feel their business can be legitimized and the cops will leave them alone," Sepp said. When I got through to Flint, he complained about "misinformation" and hung up the phone.
New York likewise has a massive budget deficit, and Governor David Paterson has proposed a host of new levies, including an expansion of the sales tax to services such as manicures, pedicures, and massages. The Empire State, like Massachusetts, is big on "Pigovian" taxes, named after the British economist Arthur Cecil Pigou, which purport to correct a noxious behavior, e.g. smoking, by taxing it out of existence. Taxes on smoking, gambling, and drinking are politically acceptable - nice people don't! - and famously regressive, soaking citizens with the least ability to pay.
A classic example of regressive taxation would be the "junk food" or obesity taxes propounded by right-thinking people everywhere. Paterson is proposing an 18 percent surcharge on soft drinks containing sugar, theorizing that sodas make you fat, obesity is bad, etc., etc. Cranberry juice contains more sugar than Pepsi, but facts are the first casualty when government commits itself to public betterment.
The Washington, D.C.,-based Tax Foundation and the libertarians at Reason magazine have jumped all over this. "People who are not obese will pay this tax," the foundation's Josh Barro writes, adding that if you are going to tax sweet stuff, why not tax ice cream, too?
But you can't tax ice cream! I eat ice cream. Tax those horse owners in Dover, Sherborn, and points north - that's a much better idea.
Barack H. Obama needs no introduction. As for the rest of us, a word or two might help. Tyga recently released an album, "No Introduction," but I think the tattoo-festooned California rapper ne Michael Stevenson may be getting ahead of himself. In a recent dispatch, the Newhouse News Service insisted that Marcella Hazan "needs no introduction." Who she? "The Julia Child of Italian cuisine," we are told.
Last year, the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Journal Gazette reported that Indianapolis, "the nation's 12th largest city, is booming and needs no introduction." Indianapolis . . . don't tell me. Is that the one on Lake Erie? With the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Never mind.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.
