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Some bleeding-hearts are already arguing that there is
something terribly unfair about the Bush administration's
proposed tax revenue increases.
For one thing, George II promised no new taxes
when he accepted the Republican nomination in 1988, and now
he wants to raise the federal excise taxes on a fifth of
80-proof vodka from $1.98 to $2.54. The 3-cent tax on table
wine would rise to 81 cents, and the 16-cent tax on a
sixpack would be 76 cents.
But let's be fair here. He promised no new taxes.
There were already taxes on liquor, wine and beer, so these
aren't new taxes.
They're improved taxes.
Nobody ever read his lips and discerned no improved
taxes.
He hasn't really been misleading us, no matter
what sort of malicious gossip you hear.
For another, the excise taxes sound manifestly biased
against the economically impaired. (If feeble-minded people
are developmentally disabled,
and if physically
handicapped people are mobility hindered,
then
people in my income bracket can be economically
impaired,
rather than poor,
shiftless
or
ne'er-do-well.
)
The charge of unfairness comes because the tax on a $150 bottle of '61 Chateau Lafitte Rothschild will be precisely the same amount as the tax on a $2 bottle of aged-in-transit Mad Dog 20.
Thus a rich person will pay 0.54 percent in taxes for the impressive bottle of a special intimate evening, while the economically impaired person will pay 40 percent in taxes for the stuff he shares with the other unemployed guys sitting on the curb.
Further, the economically impaired spend proportionately more of their income on alcoholic beverages than do the economically advantaged, so an increase in alcohol taxes hits them harder. If the increased taxes take effect, the bottom 20 percent of America will pay 0.59 percent more of its meager income in federal taxes, whereas the top 20 percent will pay only 0.21 percent more.
That's a differential of 281 percent in favor of the rich. The easy explanation is that you should expect that sort of tax scheme when you have a Republican president.
But in other ways, the Bush plan makes sense. One reason for alcohol taxes is that they help society bear the costs caused by alcohol consumption, such as operating treatment facilities and patrolling against drunken drivers.
However, the rich don't go to a tax-funded state hospital to dry out, but to private sanitariums. They don't drive while intoxicated; they call taxis or hire chauffeurs. Unemployed coupon-clippers don't patronize public soup kitchens or homeless shelters. Unlike the poor, they can get royally plastered frequently and never cost society a nickel. It costs the government a great deal more when a poor person drinks, so it's only fair that the poor pick up more of their share of this burden.
Besides, it is obvious that when you tax something, you discourage it. The Bush administration has taken an important first step by taxing one aspect of poverty. We should soon see excise taxes proposed for blue jeans, pinto beans, old cars, non-pedigreed dogs. If these taxes pass, poverty will be eliminated in the United States, and prosperity will reign forevermore.
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