Quote:
Originally Posted by RainMaker
My problem with the sin tax is that I don't think it's the government's responsibility to decide what's a bad thing. I don't consider gambling to be bad, but I do think certain churches are bad for society. One gets taxes massively and the other gets off with no taxes.
So you don't like government, but you want it to tell you what is and isn't a sin when it comes to your lifestyle? Isn't that a personal matter and a decision each person should make on their own?
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As it is now, what mechanism determines what is a bad thing and a good thing for you
in a financial sense? The free market is the *only* mechanism. You want to, say, drink a 24 pack of Mountain Dew every day and not exercise, you're free to do that now to the tune of about $6 per day. Why $6 per day? Because that's what people are willing to pay. Is there some particular justification for $6 per day? Is there some societal value that makes it so? How about any real rhyme or reason to why is costs what it does? No, only that the manufacturing company provides it as the rate that maximizes their profits where their supply meets the demand of the consumer. Nothing more, nothing less.
The government is a social contract. We all agreed to live under it and if you don't like it, there are 190-something and counting other places you can go. Similarly, if you don't like particular decisions, you even have control over whether those decision makers have a job and can make more decisions every 2, 4, and 6 years on a national level and various lengths on a state level.
If the government taxes something because of its bad effects on society, you are still free to pursue in that activity. Smokers can still smoke. You can still buy alcohol. These things are not illegal but they are discouraged because people need to be paying for the true value they are costing society and not just what maximizes a corporate profit.
So, let's say I don't like that you drink that much Mountain Dew, I can vote for the candidate who is in favor of a Mountain Dew tax. You can vote for the pro Mountain Dew party and may the best candidate and ideas win. Hell, if the Supreme Court strikes down campaign finance laws like they're about to, there may actually be a Mountain Dew party. It wasn't "no taxation", it was "no taxation without representation" and you have the ability to change your representation. Even better, we have checks and balances so maybe the President likes Mountain Dew so he vetoes it or it's found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (it'd make an interesting case).
At the end of the day, what is legal and acceptable to buy vs tax is decided on whether you feel that it should be one dollar, one vote (i.e. the market) or one person, one vote (i.e. the government). It's a situation where doing nothing or even failing to acknowledge that there's a choice is still tacitly choosing a side- and there are more than two but doing or believing nothing is distinctly one side- whether you want to admit it or not.
I'm not saying I'm all for sin taxes all over the place and they certainly have the problems of unintended consequences. But, like most things, it can't just be boiled down to "freedom bad, tax good". There's a lot more to it than that if you actually are willing to think about it.
SI