#2
For crying out loud! Is any one else sick of this blame game crapola? Time for this administration to man up and quit cry-babying, whining, and blaming someone else.
Ah, politicians and their sin taxes. It's like kids with big bags of candy the day after Halloween... they just can't help themselves. When they want to raise revenues but fear the wrath of the voters, the surest path to some quick cash has traditionally been taxing "bad things" which will raise the least objections from the populace. (Why they don't simply outlaw these things if they are so "bad" is never explained.) But does it actually produce the desired effect of bringing more money into the government's coffers?
This experiment has been running for some time now in Cook County, on the outskirts of Chicago. Intrepid county politicians decided to cash in on the sin tax craze back in 2006, going after smokers by tacking on a fee of ten cents per cigarette. (Or two dollars per pack.) This has had some predictable, if disappointing results.
In 2006, the county collected about $200 million in cigarette tax revenue, but that dropped to about $126 million last year.
"There's probably some people who have given up smoking, but I don't think that accounts for $74 million (less)," [Sheriff Tom] Dart said.
When you increase the tax burden sufficiently on anyone, some will abandon the activity, but for many others they will eventually find ways around it. In this case, both smokers and businesses have begun exploring the increasingly lucrative black market trade for smokes. So much so, in fact, that the county is now spending even more resources and money to chase down the scofflaws and pay out "snitch fees" for people to turn in their neighbors.
Chicago-area stores profiting from under-the-table cigarette sales may see that business plan go up in smoke.
That's because Cook County is stepping up enforcement of its $2-a-pack cigarette tax, offering rewards of up to $1,000 to anyone whose information that a store is skirting the tobacco tax leads to arrests, county board President Toni Preckwinkle and Sheriff Tom Dart announced Friday.
[...]
After beefing up the investigative arm of the county revenue department and bringing sheriff's officers in to assist in recent weeks, the county has hit some stores with more than $400,000 in fines for those selling cigarettes under the tax radar. In all of 2010, $1.6 million in fines were levied.
So let me get this straight. By implementing a sin tax to bring more money in, you've managed to not only slash the amount of revenue you're collecting nearly in half, but the taxpayers also have to lay out thousands of additional dollars to pay a bounty for folks to turn in neighborhood stores and residents? Plus, as a bonus, you're hammering the small businesses in the area far more than any huge corporate behemoths.
Genius. I would say, "only in Chicago," but sadly this is going on all over the country.
UPDATE: Our friend Steve Eggleston points out in the comments that Wisconsin is pulling a similar maneuver, cracking down on "roll your own" shops. With the massive price increases on commercial brands, many smokers have taken to purchasing loose tobacco and rolling papers / machines to produce their own at less than half the cost. The government is now apparently going after them as well to make sure no smoker goes unfleeced.
Par for the course. Politicians plan on X amount of money from sin taxes to pay for a program, then people stop "sinning" and there isn't enough money for said program. Politicians resort to thuggery and tyrannical means to get said money for said program and over reach and stomp on civil liberties. Which is why the whole idea of a sin tax to generate money for programs is fucking retarded.
#2
Meanwhile, at the Cook County IL morgue, staff have again resorted to double-stacking bodies in the cooler due to lack of space. Their excuse is that the cheap wooden coffins they were supposed to use for September burials are on 'back order.' Probably on a slow boat from China, or perhaps the imported wood has run afoul of the Environmental Crimes section of the US Justice Department. Making wooden boxes is not rocket science, except in Cook County. We're at Peak Government.
John Boehner, calling it like it is. At the same time that the president took to the podium to chastise members of Congress for purportedly putting politics before country, the House Speaker expressed his own frustration with the presidents unwillingness to actually negotiate:
Mr. President, why have you given up on the country and decided to campaign full-time? Boehner asked at the Washington Ideas Forum, at the same time that the president was holding his own press conference at the White House.
Working with the president has at times been frustrating, especially in efforts to come up with a big deal in budget and deficit negotiations, Boehner said.
I can tell you I put every ounce of effort that I can to come up with some agreement, he said. I could never get the president to the point where he would say yes to real changes in entitlement programs. It takes two to tango, and the president would never say yes.
While Im inclined to take John Boehners side in this back-and-forth (its evident the president is in prime campaign mode at the moment!), I cant help but wonder why so many folks see gridlocked government as a problem. Yes, divided government does less. Consider these numbers from Roll Call:
From Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 last year, the House passed 752 measures, while the Senate passed 440. The president signed 115 measures into law.
During the same period this year, the House has passed 247 measures, compared with the Senates 265. A mere 35 bills have been signed into law.
But is that so bad? Think of all the unintended consequences of legislation, of the countless programs the government already runs inefficiently. If the lack of legislation over the past year means fewer problems inadvertently created by government and fewer poorly-run government programs, then Im really not too troubled by it.
Its one thing if a lack of legislation stems from laziness (e.g. the lack of a budget from the Senate), but its another if it stems from the intentional goal of keeping government interference to a minimum or from a divided government that requires Congress to be more thoughtful and acquire broader support for the bills it does pass. Yes, we need targeted legislative solutions to our most pressing problems and, yes, certain functions of government have to be carried out, but why is our immediate solution to every so-called crisis a new law? A reexamination of old laws, the removal of regulatory and other barriers, and increased opportunity to let people do what they do best (a.k.a. innovate) would go a long way toward fixing our current economic and jobs crisis.
Header should read: HRH Lincoln Davenport Chafee (X-R) Decrees Largess To Illegal Aliens. Same link.
The immigration debate sparked a large protest outside the Rhode Island State House Wednesday.
Hundreds of people rallied who were upset over Governor Chafee's support of in-state college tuition rates and driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.
Hundreds of immigrant children paraded their way through the State House delivering white roses to the governor's staff to thank Chafee for his support of in-state tuition and driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants.
Chafee did not attend the event. His staff told ABC6 he was in meetings at the time. The governor says he won't hesitate using his power to put policy changes in place.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Ah, politicians and their sin taxes. It's like kids with big bags of candy the day after Halloween... they just can't help themselves. When they want to raise revenues but fear the wrath of the voters, the surest path to some quick cash has traditionally been taxing "bad things" which will raise the least objections from the populace. (Why they don't simply outlaw these things if they are so "bad" is never explained.) But does it actually produce the desired effect of bringing more money into the government's coffers?
When you increase the tax burden sufficiently on anyone, some will abandon the activity, but for many others they will eventually find ways around it. In this case, both smokers and businesses have begun exploring the increasingly lucrative black market trade for smokes. So much so, in fact, that the county is now spending even more resources and money to chase down the scofflaws and pay out "snitch fees" for people to turn in their neighbors.
John Boehner, calling it like it is. At the same time that the president took to the podium to chastise members of Congress for purportedly putting politics before country, the House Speaker expressed his own frustration with the presidents unwillingness to actually negotiate:
