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Among my many unpleasant memories is the 1980 Lincoln Day dinner put on by local Republicans. Although I was the managing editor of a daily newspaper with due powers of office, every reporter had something else to cover that night. So I was stuck with the Republicans.
Such gatherings generally offer only boredom, but I found hostility because a Republican county commissioner, beloved by everyone there except me, had just named me in a $2 million libel suit. And the speaker that night was Sam Zakhem.
The one-time state senator and volleyball virtuoso has gone on to greater things, but in those days, he gave rousing speeches that made John Wayne, by comparison, sound like some pantywaist pinko.
Even so, Zakhem made an interesting observation: If you want less of something, you tax it. If you want more of an activity or product, eliminate its taxes.
Now our governor says we need a tax increase for new highways and prisons. Some suggest enhancing the state lottery, while others figure that higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco will do the job.
But perhaps we should adopt the Zakhem theory, and tax what we don't want. Colorado would win either way. Either the undesirable activity would vanish on account of prohibitive taxes, or else the state treasury would swell, thus reducing taxes for the rest of us. But what should be taxed?
How about a Yuppie Levy? It would be difficult to tax ostentation directly, but there are indirect methods. Triple the license-plate fees for new Audis, Volvos and BMWs. Enact a stiff surcharge for every minute of conversation on an auto-borne cellular telephone. Require joggers to be licensed. Put a $5-per-bottle special excise duty on Corona beer; if the drinker were sincere about enjoying good Mexican beer, rather than demonstrating his conformist lack of taste, he'd be drinking Negra Modelo or Dos Equis.
Another tax Colorado could use is the Idiotic Proposal Assessment.
Here's an example of why this is needed. Lately there has been much talk around here about damming the Arkansas River at Brown's Canyon. That's tremendously expensive. The resulting reservoir's storage won't benefit anybody here, since we already have water. Such tourist-drawing recreation as it offered wouldn't come close to replacing what it would eliminate -- a great brown-trout fishery and one of the most popular whitewater rafting streams in the nation.
Obviously, putting a dam in the Arkansas River up here makes absolutely no sense. Yet the talk persists, and many of us will soon be forced to take time away from productive work to circulate petitions, attend hearings, file protests, sequester stolen dynamite and otherwise prepare to stop the dam.
We would prefer to be left alone to go about our work and play. But we can't, not as long as that idiotic proposal is being taken seriously in some circles.
There's no way to stop anyone from espousing such schemes. But suppose that every grandiose notion required a tax of $20 million before it could be presented to any public body. We might still have Two Forks and a new Denver airport to worry about. But such a tax would halt all talk of an unneeded dam down here. Nor would there be much concern about the proposed Quail Mountain Resort or making the Eisenhower Tunnel one-way on Sundays.
With the Idiotic Proposal Assessment, our brightest citizens could be productive for the future, instead of constantly struggling to preserve the better aspects of the present. Colorado's economy would improve.
A final necessity is the Bogus Complaint Tax. There are men sleeping under bridges and eating from dumpsters, women trying to raise families on $600 a month, children living in cars.
But when you hear anyone complain about life in the
Rockies, it's usually along the line of The best offer
we had on our Vail condo was $20,000 less than what we were
asking, but maybe it's for the best to stay in real estate
anyway. The way the stock market dropped, we'll only be
able to afford three weeks on the Riviera, unless we cut
back on Jason's polo lessons or sell one Mercedes.
Who needs to hear such drivel? Tax it at $50 a word, and give the proceeds to the panhandlers. At least their hard-luck stories are entertaining.
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