I know I spend too much time focusing on the clowns at Reason, but this piece by Katherine Mangu-Ward is just too priceless a sample of the type of asshattery that dominates the magazine these days. Starting with the news that Obama called Kanye West a jackass (a statement everyone in the western world agrees with), she pivots to a statement by Muhtar Kent, the President of Coca Cola, making a Soviet Union reference regarding the taxation of soda, and then moves in with that glibertarian smarm we’ve all grown to love:
In his heart of hearts, Obama would clearly love to tax soda. And he may yet get his wish. But for the moment he is worn down, beaten by uppity legislators and people who like fizzy, corn syrupy drinks. Having the CEO of an all-American/massive multi-national company compare his administration’s policies to those of the Soviet Union should be good for another few weeks of presidential despair.
Keep it up, Mr. Kent, and you too might earn the coveted Presidential Jackass Medal.
Not only is it impossible for her to know what is in Obama’s “heart of hearts,” she is radically misrepresenting what Obama said, which was the following:
- “Obviously there is resistance on Capitol Hill to those kinds of sin taxes….Legislators from certain states that produce sugar or corn syrup are sensitive to anything that might reduce demand for those products. And look, people’s attitude is that they don’t necessarily want Big Brother telling them what to eat or drink, and I understand that.”
Yeah. That just suggests he is “beaten down by uppity legislators.”
Aside from being the typical snide gibberish I’ve become accustomed to from the deep thinkers over there, if Mangu-Ward would have thought for thirty seconds before going full wingnut, she would have realized there actually are some libertarian arguments that are really relevant right now in regards to the taxation of soda. For example, why tax sweetened drinks before you end the ludicrous farm subsidies that have led to the glut of high fructose corn syrup? And why else are companies using so much high fructose corn syrup? Because the tariffs are so high on sugar in order to protect American sugar cane farmers. Two direct government actions in the form of transfer payments and protectionism that have had a huge impact on the type of drinks we ingest as a nation.
The last I checked, transfer payments, free trade, and smart government were things libertarians were allegedly concerned about. In fact, before the days of the great socialist Obamenace, Reason used to be nominally interested in these issues. But then again, this is Reason magazine in the Gillespie/Welch Obama era, where it is better to be a reactionary smart-ass than smart.
Shabbazz
Whoa whoa whoa — let’s not impugn dope smokers, now. They tend to be a much more logical and creative lot than this group of numb-nuts.
Now if by “dope smokers”, you mean “huffers of lighter fluid”, then sure — I’m on board.
joe from Lowell
Having the CEO of an all-American/massive multi-national company compare his administration’s policies to those of the Soviet Union should be good for another few weeks of presidential despair.
Right, because the public would immediately side with the CEO of a massive multi-national conglomerate over Barack Obama!
Way to keep your finger on the pulse of America, Reason.
Mike in NC
So is “uppity” the latest wingnut dog-whistle code word, replacing “empathy” and “Messiah” and “Chicago-style corruption” and all the rest?
Calouste
Let’s see “uppity” and referring to a company whose long-term rival has an Indian born CEO as “All-American”.
Only two racist dog whistles, that’s almost polite conversation for a libertardian screed.
RSA
But glibertarians are just picking their battles. I mean, the chance to object to such government interference with the free market pales in comparison with the chance to say that legislators are being uppity to a black President. Right?
Cat Lady
@Mike in NC:
There’s only one word left to use. Who’s going to be the first one to grab the mic and go full wingnut?
Fulcanelli
@Shabbazz: For the Win!
Before we had a black president, when the hell did we EVER see any op-ed columnist or the professional pundit use the word “uppity”?
Nope, no racism, nothing to see here, just keep whistling past the graveyard where media civility and decorum are worm food. Effin’ doooooshbagz.
JK
I’ve never been a frequent reader of Reason. Were they any more sane or rational when Bush was president?
Midnight Marauder
@Cat Lady:
There’s only one word left to use. Who’s going to be the first one to grab the mic and go full wingnut?
I’ve always felt that Uncle Pat has to be the #1 choice for that, followed very closely by Palin and…
Michael Steele.
That would be delicious.
Ben
Serious question: why are libertarians opposed to taxing something that causes health problems? It doesn’t seem to have the same economic incentive problems as an income tax. Or is this just another case of libertarianism being assimilated into the more generic, vociferously stupid right wing?
SpotWeld
Next time the folks at Reason want to play “let’s pretend” I would much rather they be pirates instead of mind readers.
It’s ever so much more fun!
joe from Lowell
I think they were, JK. The financial meltdown really drove them around the bend. They desperately grabbed on to the “minority lending did this!” line because they couldn’t face the truth, and it’s been downhill ever since.
Seanly
Well, the problem is that you are viewing the issue from several angles, identifying other issues and asking good questions. None of those are things that the typical libertarian will do.
A big part of my problem with libertarians, second only after their lack of empathy for their fellow man, is that they never seem to consider more than one or two items. Never any consideration of the world as a whole with the complex interactions & dependencies that anyone over 11 understands.
Ben
Thinking about it (what I put in #10) a little more, they’d probably say there’s no externalities associated with pop consumption. This isn’t really true, though (given how health care costs are distributed), and besides, these are probably the same people who are bitterly opposed to a carbon tax and pollution regulations in general.
AhabTRuler
You have Reason and DougJ has the editorial board of the Washington Post. Everybody needs a hobby.
Zifnab
Fix’d!
Also, did you know Glenn Beck may have raped and murdered a young girl in 1990? So far he hasn’t even bothered to deny it.
J.W. Hamner
@Ben: I would guess we’re dealing with the pubescent “Nobody tells ME what to do” wing of libertarian thought. Any incentive that doesn’t involve making lots of money and/or killing brown people is Communist.
MikeJ
Steele is probably the best bet. Let him go first, then it’s open season for everyone.
ellaesther
This is fairly OT, but honestly, where else will I get to say it?
The leak of that tape has managed the not inconsiderable feat of making me feel sorry for Kanye West.
Because, ok, dude’s a jackass, no question — but you know what, the person most hurt by his behavior that evening was him, and I think he’s smart enough to know that.
But now the President of the United States of America — THIS President of the United States of America — is on record saying he’s a jackass, and that will never, ever go away. Oy, that would hurt like a motherfucker.
Though, on the other hand, the way things go with Obama, he’ll probably call Kanye and invite him to the White House, so maybe I don’t feel sorry for him after all. Sigh. Now I just feel sorry for me, because I’ll never be invited to the Obama White House!
AhabTRuler
Come to think of it, DougJ’s hobby used to be you, so at least one of you is moving up in the world.
General Winfield Stuck
Funny that, Obama seems to me to be a guy having the time of his life. With all the scary and stupid shit the wingers are throwing up by the second, I would expect a little despair.
Not so Gracie, and is it me, or does the front page of memerandun look like a horror show of flaming wingnuttery, everything from Malkin on tops, and every other nutter typing out epic streams of bullshit. ACORN, race war flogging, Joe Wilson worship, Bush era history rewrites, etc//// etc…../
And for the record, Glibertarians make about as much sense to me as 80’s music.
Martin
Given that what Obama *really* wants to do is enslave all the white people, I think it’s safe to say that Obama wants to tax everything but Courvoisier and malt liquor.
(and yes, they’re definitely trying to defuse ‘uppity’ given that they know they can’t help it slipping out. Expect it to expand. “Man, that’s one uppity car you got!”, “Baby, you can uppity me all night long!”…)
joes527
@joe from Lowell:
fix’d
cj
What is so wrong with taxing soda? People will still drink it.
In my area a 2 liter soda cost $2 plus tax and we still buy it.
Zifnab
And John, you have to keep in mind that in wingnut world, dissolving a lucrative government subsidy for agricultural industry giants or dropping tariffs on high demand imports would be exactly the same as raising taxes on the poorest soda drinking fools in the bluest cities in America while breaking the backs of heartland family farmers.
Because mumble mumble supports Medicare grumble grumble socialism hiccup fart nose-pick Going Galt Don’t Tread On Me Super Hitler.
Cat Lady
@MikeJ:
Whoa, that would be interesting. That might be the wingularity trigger event.
Zifnab
And John, you have to keep in mind that in wingnut world, dissolving a lucrative government subsidy for agricultural industry giants or dropping tariffs on high demand imports would be exactly the same as raising taxes on the poorest soda drinking fools in the bluest cities in America while breaking the backs of heartland family farmers.
Because mumble mumble supports Medicare grumble grumble socia lism hiccup fart nose-pick Going Galt Don’t Tread On Me Super Hitler.
gnomedad
In her heart of hearts, Ms. Mangu-Ward would clearly like to have sex with goats. And she may yet get her wish. But for the moment, she is worn down.
Ash Can
@Midnight Marauder:
OMG, yes! Of course! It’s perfect. He says it, Dems/Obama supporters crap a brick, and the GOP says, “What? Blacks call each other that all the time. WTF are you all so upset about?”
Damn, why didn’t I see that one coming myself? Midnight Marauder, you’re a genius.
MikeJ
@Cat Lady: In my thinking when it happens, you’ll hear a million southern white men say what I’ve heard a million other southern white men say. “No, no, no that word doesn’t really just mean black person. It’s a certain *kind* of black person.”
jl
Glibertarianism is essentially worshipping whoever has the most cash stuffed into their pockes, or whoever is well financed and has a scheme to grab as much cash to stuff into their pocket as quickly as possible.
Cole seems to be talking about taking a broad view, putting things into context, and considering offsetting effects of policy. All of which are probably irrelevant to responsible and rational discussion of public policy in our current society.
corwin
A tax on unhealthy food, coupled with a tax break for healthy food and gym memberships would have an impact on public health. It seems as if the libertarians might actually want to go along with that, unless they are ok with this country being filled with the human marshmallows in WALL*E.
Brachiator
@JK:
Good question. I only read the magazine intermittently, but it seemed to me that the Bush Administration pretty much kicked libertarians to the curb, and they were generally quiet about it. Some articles I recall from the period were standard fringe stuff (interview with Milton Friedman, some odd article about the Beatles, the inevitable stuff about legalizing drugs), but I don’t recall much that acknowldedged that the Republicans often flouted what were supposed to be core libertarian values.
But libertarians are doubly odd in that, for example, they can’t complain about civil liberties violations as undermining the Constitution since libertarian values aren’t necessarily founded in that document, but in some Burkean gaseous ether that precedes the Constitution, and reality.
JK
@ellaesther:
Obama was correct to call Kanye West a jackass.
I just wish Obama would have said this “Kanye West was a jackass just like Joe Wilson”
gnomedad
@Zifnab:
Sorry, overlooked your post.
General Winfield Stuck
I have an had a brain spark on how to tax shit without pain.
Obama should propose a tax on taxes. Since most wingnut hate taxes, they won’t mind taxing them. Makes as much sense as getting the government out of Medicare. Use teh stupid as a weapon of mass delusion and the rubes will fall in line and thank Obama for seeing things their way.
TX Expat
@Seanly:
My problem with libertarians, at least here in LA, is that they are overly focused on the government staying out of their property/money but have no problem with the government mandating very individual decisions like end of life or abortion.
Intellectual consistency would be most be welcome, but probably not gonna happen.
Although the sight of Bobby J going around the state handing out stimulus checks with his name on them is an endless source of amusement.
Brian J
Yes, the policies that give us over consumption of certain products should end, but isn’t taxation, or some other market mechanism, like cap-and-trade for pollution, the better answer, as opposed to regulations and bans? The principle seems to be that you can do whatever you want, as long as the costs are accounted for. Hence, you can drive an SUV if you want, as long as the gas tax covers the costs involved.
Wouldn’t the same sort of argument apply to items like cigarettes and soda? Granted, it’s probably hard to pin down exact costs for a lot of this stuff, but still, the point is that a tax seems to be a way to deal with the problem while maximizing freedom. Shouldn’t the right be applauding this sort of move?
gronald
I enjoy how Mangu-Ward’s reverence for the Coca Cola company oddly parallels that of Col. Bat Guano in “Dr. Strangelove”:
“You’re gonna have to answer to the Coca Cola Company . . ..”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUAK7t3Lf8s
JK
@Brachiator:
Thanks for your response. So, in essence, the staff at Reason are hypocrites. They rant and rave about Obama’s dangerous moves that erode civil liberties, but if Bush carried out similar measures they had nothing to say.
eemom
Sorry for OT, but I just had to share this particular newsflash……..
Bush once said something SMART!!
From the latest tell-all by some obscure speechwriter:
“Latimer also writes that in the final months of the presidential campaign, Bush stunned the euphoric White House by objecting to John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, which the former president would at first only describe as “interesting.” Even though he was informed that conservatives were responding enthusiastically, Bush advised people to wait “until the bloom is off the rose.” Finally, as everyone in the room “looked at him with horror, Bush gave a ‘smart assessment’ “:
“This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for,” he said. “She hasn’t spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let’s wait and see how she looks five days out.” It was a rare dose of reality in a White House that liked to believe every decision was great, every Republican was a genius, and McCain was the hope of the world because, well, because he chose to be a member of our party.”
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/15/former-speechwriter-says-bush-slammed-obama-predicted-palin-deb/
Or, maybe this is just the latest installment in Byron Asshole York’s “Bush wasn’t really a conservative” meme…….
Midnight Marauder
@Ash Can:
OMG, yes! Of course! It’s perfect. He says it, Dems/Obama supporters crap a brick, and the GOP says, “What? Blacks call each other that all the time. WTF are you all so upset about?”
Damn, why didn’t I see that one coming myself? Midnight Marauder, you’re a genius.
It’s funny. That’s pretty much exactly how it always plays out in my mind.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
No self-respecting “dope smoker” would have anything to do with this asshattery. Regarding sin taxes, all I have to say to that is SCHIP/tobacco.
I hope they put a sin tax on greasy bacon-cheeseburgers and fries from fast ‘food’ places, soda, Cheetoes and every single product that is not healthy. If they can go after us smokers for our ‘bad habits’ then they can go after everything else that is detrimental to health. Fuck the whiners on this, if you supported SCHIP then logically you should support ‘sin taxes’ on junk food. Use the proceeds for the public option.
With the number of people who eat this shit, that ought to raise enough to pay for health care and pay off the national debt.
gnomedad
@Brian J:
For years I have argued to lefty friends that market mechanisms were better that across-the-board regulation for addressing things like pollution. So now we have cap and trade, and the loons are calling it fascism. Screw them. They don’t have principles, just tantrums.
Brachiator
@JK:
Exactly.
Brachiator
@JK:
Curses on a lack of edit function.
I was going to add that I would often read a more substantive conservative criticism of Bush in the Economist than in Reason.
tc125231
@Zifnab: Man, you have SUCH a way with words.
Wish I was that good.
Leelee for Obama
Comrade Dread
Actually, Reason was split during the Bush years. You had guys like Radley Balko who were pretty vocal against the abuses of the Bush administration, and you had a small cadre of pro-war Reason writers who kind of shut up during that time.
Exactly. End farm subsidies and you would do a lot to fight obesity and help poor African farmers eek out more of a living.
Cat Lady
@JK:
I’m sure he did off the record. And, how much would you pay to hear Joe Wilson apologizing to Rahm? What’s been amazing is how little of what Rahm actually does say gets reported, but I’m guessing it may be because it’s unprintable.
Surabaya Stew
Stop making too much sense! Or else you’ll embarrass the really smart folks over at Reason…
b-psycho
@Ash Can: …am I the only one who imagines Michael Steele saying something really stupid & Obama blurting out in response “nigga, PLEASE!”?
Mark S.
@JK:
We used to have a subscription to it back around 2002 or 2003, and it was seriously one of the most boring magazines I have ever read. At that time, of course, the Iraq War was on everyone’s mind, but I don’t recall the magazine writing much at all about it. In fact, the only articles I can remember were about how Martha Stewart shouldn’t go to jail because insider trading should be legal and some book review where the guy spent the whole time saying every philosopher after Aristotle sucked.
Needless to say, we did not renew the subscription.
A Squirrel
As someone with a great deal of sympathy for libertarianism, Reason annoys me more than NR or The Weekly Standard, at least on economic policy. You wouldn’t think they know corporate welfare exists, fer chrissakes.
Libertarian doesn’t have to mean “corporate whore”, but I can’t blame anyone that feels that way at this point.
Also, sin taxes are typically very regressive. Just sayin’.
JGabriel
Katherine Mangu-Ward:
Wait… all-American and multi-national?
I detect an oxymoron!
.
Brian J
I’d say so. I don’t know how much of a switch the increasing emphasis on stuff like cap-and-trade is compared to what the Democrats were advocating in, say, 1980 is, but the reaction from those on the right who would, in a sane world, be cheering this stuff on is a bewildering mix of stubbornness, fecklessness, and a descent into almost anarchism.
Leelee for Obama
@JGabriel: No, it’s just bullshit. They smell similar though, so it’s understandable.
Mike in NC
Seeing all those fat people unable to walk struck me right away as representing Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck.
b-psycho
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): That kind of “hell yeah we need to reshape everyone’s behavior!” talk is a great way to turn people against you…
I wonder: does Canada have a rabidly pro- “sin taxes” political faction? Does France? Britain? Do any of those countries subscribe to the same logic that the slightest bit of use of collective benefit entitles the rest of the country to nitpick at your lifestyle?
Viva BrisVegas
Muhtar Kent, Katherine Mangu-Ward.
I thought the meme on the right these days was that nobody with a furrin sounding name could possibly be legitimate?
I’m still waiting to hear John Smith’s opinion.
Mike
Here in the socialist utopia of Illinois, the sales tax on a certain items – soda, mints, candy, which had previously enjoyed the low tax rate as “food” – just went up to the level of most other retail items.
Seems reasonable enough to me.
Martin
Generally their VAT is substantially higher than ours – and with the possible exception of a few states’ cig and booze taxes are high enough to encompass any and all proposed sin taxes.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@b-psycho:
That’s not my point, I am not pro-sin taxes. But if you are going to tax one sin then you better not complain when someone proposes taxing every single sin. If it’s good enough for smokers then it is good enough for everyone. Obesity IS a health issue, just like smoking. If taxing smoking because it is bad, then logically it should follow that everything that is bad is a candidate for a sin tax.
That’s all. If someone supports one but not the other than they are a hypocrite. Good for thee but not for me!
Jason
I just wish the writing would improve. I’ve waded through so much crap this week – Jonah on Rousseau and Dewey, the whoever speechwriter in GQ, that one guy on that blog, uh, over there. Just awful.
srv
Heh. Tax the domestic diabetes cow syrup all you want. NAFTA will protect my sacred Mexican Coca Cola.
JK
@Mark S.:
When it comes to sheer smugness, there are few people who can top Nick Gillespie. I’ve seen him on C-SPAN a few times, in his fake leather jacket and he’s a real piece of work.
Cat Lady
This post took the wankers at Reason down so hard it probably still hurts. A taste of the snark:
Reason recently published a debate held at its 35th anniversary banquet. The flavor of this discussion is indescribable. In its total estrangement from our political and social life today, its wilfull disregard of all known facts about human nature, it resembles nothing so much as a debate over some fine procedural point of end-stage communism, after the state has withered away. Child-care arrangements, let’s say. Position A: there will be well run communal creches! Position B: nonsense! the amount of work required from each individual to maintain a perfectly functioning society will be so small that people can care for their own children and those of others on a spontaneous basis, as the need arises!
John O
Great post, John, as usual.
The context of the compliment here is that I have me some libertarian tendencies. *duck/cover*
For the most part, I think the government’s jurisdiction ends at my property and skin, with some very, very unique exceptions.
Between ages 17-25, I was all like, “Right On!” about Atlas Shrugged. (I’m 50.)
I STILL believe we should have a national discussion about things most of us agree we should be more “libertarian” on. Abortion is the most obvious example of them all, IMHO, but we discuss that already. Our gun laws tend to be reasonably sensible, though in no way adhere to either side’s version of Amendment #2.
Hell, I think ANY conceptual tax code other than the one we have now would be an improvement as long as everyone with a HS education knew what everybody else’s tax nut was. Including corporations, who, after all, are just people too.
But most of all I have grown to learn that life is a team sport, and if you’re not willing to at least consider the team, and offer respect to the other team (dissent encouraged!), you really shouldn’t be playing on one, including politically.
slag
An ancillary benefit of removing these subsidies instead of taxing soda is that it prevents Congress from having to define “soda”. I’ve seen lots of all-natural sodas come on the market recently and have wondered if they would be subject to the same tax as Coke or Pepsi. And after soda is defined, you have to wonder what might corporations do to get around the definition. In this situation, removing subsidies might achieve similar results in a simpler fashion.
That said, I assume there are compelling arguments not to eliminate subsidies other than “It would piss off Iowa”. I just don’t know what they are.
JK
@Brachiator:
I haven’t read The Economist in a long time, but I have a lot of respect for the magazine.
I don’t agree with their conservative politics, but they regularly produce a meaty, serious, substantive magazine.
Beyond politics, The Economist produces a great, highly informative quarterly technology supplement.
I also enjoy their book reviews.
The Economist is a cut above its American counterparts.
HyperIon
@Calouste: Only two racist dog whistles, that’s almost polite conversation for a libertardian screed.
Wait til they get to “rabble-rousing”.
Quoth my father the day MLK got the Nobel Peace Prize: “How could they give that rabble-rousing nigger a peace prize?”
He was a deep thinker, my dad. A classic “I don’t have a problem with black people as long as they stay in their place” type. Pretty typical of the south in the 50s, 60s, 70s. I left in 1978.
slag
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): I’m all for taxing the hell out of cigarettes. Carcinogenic smoke may be good enough for thee, but it’s not good enough for me second-hand.
fliegr
Yeah yeah yeah, tax policy glibertarians corn subsidies etc. The real reason we should be concerned about this is Mexican Coke. They’re made with cane sugar not corn syrup and make that al pastor taco 100% better. We need to make all domestic Coke products the same way. Dr. Pepper too. I’ll even willingly pay a few cents tax.
John O
Are you sure, slag?
Slippery slope, indeed.
There are sin taxes I could support. We simply don’t discuss them in a national way.
HyperIon
@srv: my sacred Mexican Coca Cola.
AMEN, bro.
i had stopped drinking soda but then discovered this at Costco. Jones soda has cane sugar also but the mexicola just takes me back to my youth.
Remember the various versions (pop, motown, blues) of “It’s the real thing, coke is, in the back of your mind, coca cola, what you’re hoping to find, is the real thing.”
HyperIon
@srv:
it is “bro”, isn’t it?
can’t remember.
Mnemosyne
There are states that don’t tax soda? We’ve had that in California for years.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@slag:
Great! Obesity causes all kinds of problems (how about some fat fuck having a cardiac arrest while driving?) and drives up the cost of my health care so I say tax the shit out of unhealthy foods! Cars pump exhaust out that we all have to breathe so how about a specific sin tax on fuel and oils?
One sin tax is just as good as another. I don’t smoke around you (or other non-smokers) yet you want me to pay a sin tax for second hand smoke? You want to restrict where I can smoke when I am nowhere near you and probably never will be? Or is it just ok to tax the sin for ‘collective’ behavior?
How about this for a rebel yell?
GIVE ME A SIN-TAX FREE TRIPLE BACON-CHEESEBURGER, FRIES AND A HFCS LADEN SOFT DRINK OR GIVE ME DEATH!
;)
srv
@HyperIon: si, mi hermano.
Martin
CA doesn’t have a soda tax, it has a CRV for all soda (but not 100% juice) containers. Recycle the can and you get your nickel back.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Mnemosyne:
Hell, in the 80’s Washington state instituted a tax on beverages to pay for the war on drugs. They even required the stores to post stickers on the shelves stating the taxable amount along with the name for it (Washington Drug Tax or some sort of name completely unrelated to soda consumption).
Maybe they were taxing cottonmouth?
slag
@John O: Sadly, can’t get the link to work.
John O
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
You’re right about this, DougL, no question. That’s my main problem with the sin tax concept I generally support.
Going down that road is inevitably going to make what is “legal” vs. what is “cared about” even more vague, and unenforceable, and complex, which is generally the wrong way to go.
Life and politics sure are complicated.
I guess I think our baseline principles should be leaving everyone the eff alone in their private lives and make them cough up about tangible public good.
I believe I could achieve this and balance the budget at the same time. LOL.
Svensker
@Martin:
Given that what Obama really wants to do is enslave all the white people, I think it’s safe to say that Obama wants to tax everything but Courvoisier and malt liquor.
Don’t forget the Kools!
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I remembered that I stuck one of the stickers on a “Trail To Beach” sign that I somehow obtained years ago. ;) It has a collection of stupid stuff I have found over the years stuck to it. The tax was for the Washington State Drug Fund and the sticker states that the tax was 5.6 cents per two-liter bottle. This would have been in the late 80’s or early 90’s.
Just rename it the Federal Fat Ass Tax, change a few words and put it to work! ;)
John O
@slag:
Hmm, it sure looked like it worked, but I didn’t bother to check.
Try this.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/anti_chewing_tobacco_activists
slag
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Truth be told, I want to make smoking illegal in all public places, including the air that wafts into my home at night. So, you’re right, technically, I don’t want to tax it. But I figure taxing it is a compromise.
And yes, I’m all for pollution tax. Cap and trade or a carbon tax.
I also think that corporations shouldn’t be allowed to pollute our waterways. But I’ll take a superfund tax for now.
All those may be considered “sin taxes”, but there are certain aspects of this world that are necessarily public. Air and water are two of them.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@John O:
How about ditching taxes and just fairly taxing income and wealth? Make it one fee at the federal level, one at the state and county/city and eliminate all state and federal taxes and the many varied specific taxes that cover everything else. Sweet and simple. As for taxing wealth, IMO hoarding of wealth is detrimental to our economy. Taking money out of the system and only using it to generate more money via the market shell games is not good for the economy.
If people want to sit on their wealth then tax them. I don’t know the answers to our mess but I do know that what we have been doing is not working. We just lurch from one crisis to another and they expect the public to bail them out when they fuck up, yet they do everything they can to minimize their contributions to the funding of our nation via taxes.
Fuck that, make the rich pay just like everyone else has to. If you are not making a living and are just sitting on a pile of cash, playing the markets, and minimizing your tax exposure (which is nearly impossible for the average earner) and spending it as you see fit, then that is your ‘income’. Tax it.
ChipD
The post is spot on- re:
“The last I checked, transfer payments, free trade, and smart government were things libertarians were allegedly concerned about.”
This gets to the heart of why the debate over “Free market capitalism vs Obama socialism” is so mind-numbingly stupid.
The corporations that drive the lobbying in Washington do not have principles- they only have interests, and Washington caters to their interests, principles be damned.
So we have massive welfare and transfer payments both obvious and hidden that enrich private interests at the expense of taxpayers.
A sin tax may chap my libertarian leaning hide, but until the welfare spigot is shut off to the trough that feeds the likes of ADM, I would prefer a sin tax as a way to level out the playing field.
slag
@John O: That’s funny. If people wanted to chew tobacco instead of smoking, I would celebrate them. As would my allergies.
Mnemosyne
@eemom:
Bush’s one talent is campaigning — he’s a very good strategist and has an instinct for which dirty campaign whispers (McCain has a black baby, Kerry wounded himself) will work against his opponents. He learned the tricks of his trade at the feet of Lee Atwater.
Talent for actual governing, not so much.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
Soda is subject to sales tax in California. It does not have a separate sin tax.
John O
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Right on.
I approach it slightly differently in terms of specifics, but in general the same way in terms of simplicity:
he guiding principles that must be the foundation of a new tax system:
Everyone should be able to figure out everyone else’s taxes. In other words, someone like me, who hates the American tax code to the core of my being, should be able to calculate what Bill Gates owes/paid.
Any income category so defined by the Congress (I say only two are necessary: Earned and Unearned Income) has a 0% tax rate for those under $X dollars of said category.
The top rate gets first dibs on all future tax cuts.
A monument to Democratic machine political ineptitude is that they haven’t figured out that they can outflank the GOP on the right simply by performing one of those Capital-Steps PR events where, in this case, they just burn the Tax Code in effigy. They should, while they’re at it, invite every Republican they can talk into being there. They’ll get a few.
The U.S. Tax Code is a monument to every governmental principle our Founding Fathers tried to anticipate and circumvent; it is far longer than The Bible, and even harder to interpret precisely. This is patently ridiculous, since ultimately we are simply exchanging cash for services.
So, here’s where we start on the new tax code. Earned income is tax free for everyone up to $XX,000 (I say 36; $3K/month should provide for a decent set of choices on feeding, housing, and clothing your family). The 16 year old burger-flipper and Bill Gates both get this $36K ($XXK; the concept is far more important than the numbers, which should be debated vigorously).
The next flat rate starts above $XXK and goes to $XXX,000 (I say $200K to start) and is say, 20% or, XX%, and is again applicable to everyone who is working for money.
Above $XXX,000, the rate starts (year 1) at a percentage required to equal the prior year’s tax revenue figure. We could add higher rates, conceptually, using the same principles.
This would sell because, if you’re poor, what’s not to like, and if you’re rich, you control American politics anyway so you suddenly have lots of incentive to make some wise and responsible budget decisions. Even the Red State voters get this simple fact.
If you have to keep the Social Security tax, give up on the cap, for God’s sake. It’s the most regressive tax we have by a mile, since those with incomes unlikely to need SS are the ones who avoid lots of the taxes that fund it, year by year, as we go. Insane.
Unearned income works the same way. Allow Mr. 0% tax bracket to invest like Mr. Big does, and give him $X00 (say, $100/month) of his unearned income tax free. This benefits everyone, since now Mr. Poor has incentive to stimulate the economy by investing.
Again, trying to be simple and fair here, the next one up starts at X+1% (21% in this example–don’t we want more incentive to earn income than not earn income, collectively?) up to $XX,000. Above that, it gets taxed at a rate that combines with the top bracket of the earned incomer to be revenue neutral to the prior year, or whatever amount Congress and the POTUS can compromise on, budget wise.
It should work the same way for business. Define small, medium and large businesses by number of employees (my preference) or gross revenue—again, completely and sensibly debatable—and give them their first X% of earned income, tax free. Have two other brackets in which the tax remains flat in each earned and unearned income level, one for the medium sized company and the highest for the biggest companies, however (SIMPLY!) a big company is defined. Once again, if there is budget room down the road, the biggest companies get the first break on the tax rate.
No other deductions. It is the only fair way to do it. Every special and powerful interest group must hate it equally. This basis for debate is important.
The speech on Capitol Hill should be read, probably, by Bill Clinton, though he and Hillary are slaves to the Code anyway, so it would never happen, but if it did, it should start as the Code catches fire, and it should go like this:
“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens, we are here today to mark a historic event in American politics.”
“Our current tax code, the one burning before you, is the Mount Rushmore of American special interest politics. You could spend you’re whole life trying to figure it out, and you would never finish your task.”
“There is not one person in this country that doesn’t on some level understand that this monstrosity is most beneficial to the most privileged in our society, since they are the only ones who can afford to pay someone else to take advantage of it.”
“Also, they are the ones who have written it.”
“The Democratic Party is going to fight for a tax code that is less than 20 pages long, that anyone with a high-school education can understand, provides confidence and hope for a better future to everyone, and that favors NO ONE.”
“We want to restore faith in our political system, and we believe this first step will go a long way towards doing so. There is no Enron, no World Com, no Arthur Anderson, no corporate scandal rooted in the complexity of the tax code if we join together to build one that is sane.”
I would let Bill take it from there.
It will never happen. It’s a big reason so few of us vote.”
This was written a long time ago, obviously. I’m of the opinion that the Wall St. bailout galvanized anger in a bipartisan way, and at least that specific aspect of tea-baggery is legit.
Meaning like 5%.
Calouste
@Martin:
It’s not really about VAT (general sales tax), it’s about excise, tax on specific products, which is high as well in Western Europe in general and the UK in particular.
The excise in the UK is so high that it has lead to a number of let’s say peculiarities:
1) Most of the cigarettes for sale at Amsterdam airport are British brands which are not normally for sale in shops in continental Europe.
2) Calais, at the French end of the Channel tunnel is littered with supermarkets that mostly sell booze and cigarettes and where the personnel speaks remarkably good English.
3) British tobacco makers have discovered large new export markets in places like Malta, Andorra and Bulgaria (see 1). In a totally unrelated development, you can buy their products from guys walking around on the streets of London for about half the price of what it is in the shops.
Mnemosyne
Not to mention that California has one of the stupidest applications of sales tax ever: if you buy prepared food (like a coffee from The Coffee Bean) they ask you if you’re going to drink it there or take it home. If you drink it there, it’s taxable. If you’re going to leave with it, it’s not taxable. Asking “for here or to go” actually affects the price you will pay.
I am not making this up.
Mike in NC
Let’s start an Internet rumor that he wants a special tax on teabags and see how the wingers react.
mclaren
To the barricades, comrades! We die secure in the knowledge that our Mountain Dew remains fizzy!
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@John O:
ntl;dr (not too long;did read) :)
Sounds reasonable to me, especially removing the SS cap. We get nipped in hundreds if not thousands of taxes and fees every day to fund this or that thing in government. With the current system, those at the bottom can’t avoid taxes like the those at the top can. Our system rewards the rich and penalizes everyone else for it. Make it easy for anyone to point at one sum total and say ‘that is what I paid in taxes this year’. Make it so easy a moran could understand it.
We all are supposed to benefit from being Americans but it seems that the rich get more out of the system for less than everyone else does and as a consequence everyone else pays for it.
John O
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
It was pretty long. I just copied and pasted, because I’m tired of trying to persuade people that the Code and Accounting rules go an awfully long way towards explaining our current woes. I’m a “root cause” guy.
Thanks.
What a great place this is. Off to bed. Gotta ‘nuther shitty day in the Big Legal House to look forward to.
Busta
Libertarians are very simple creatures, really – they don’t have the stones to think of themselves anarchists, so they spend their entire lives as “intellectuals” digging themselves into ever-spiraling holes of self-contradiction.
joe from Lowell
I have to stand up for my former adversaries. They hollered like hell about Bush’s encroachments on civil liberties. The applauded Russ Feingold for voting against the USA PATRIOT Act. They have been ruthless in condemning the absurd, incompetent “security theater” in the airports. And yes, they had the mother of all freak-outs over Medicare Part D.
The Republicans have been huge hypocrites about these things, but the Reasons staffers are, with rare exceptions, not Republicans, and have not.
cs
@JK
Actually Reason did go after Bush and his cronies multiple times, at least from 2004-2008, which was when I read the magazine & their daily blog. Their tone with Bush was nearly identical as it is now with Obama, but since the reactionary smartassed-ness was aimed at BushCheney, it was completely enjoyable. They did repeatedly attack Bush on many fronts, not only on the war, torture and wiretapping, but also on the big pointless spending measures such as the Medicare expansion and No Child Left Behind.
There were a couple of writers who would pipe up to defend the administration and the wars, but they were pretty clearly going against the editorial flow. For many years, their right-leaning readers would regularly accuse the magazine of being nothing more than Democrats slumming in the libertarian hood. (And in the case of David Wiegel and Julian Sanchez, those readers were probably correct.)
And they did a good job identifying and ridiculing government excesses ranging from the big, such as the telecom spying, to the small, such as legislatures passing laws to jail teens wearing low-riding jeans.
Reason was mostly honest in those days. For example, Ron Paul was a natural candidate for them to support and initially they wrote fairly glowing articles and presented softball interviews. But later, when the racist newsletter stuff came out, they didn’t shy away from reporting on it with great detail (with a lot of QQ from their readers accusing them of selling out to mainstream politics).
They always preferred to snipe from the sidelines and never actually advocate any real policy changes beyond “lets cut taxes and legalize drugs.” Reason had a decent sized and decently educated readership but there was never any real effort to organize them the way Kos helped organize the Democrats.
Whatever their past and present sins, Reason has forever justified their existence because they gave Radley Balko an outlet for his original reporting on police and prosecutorial misconduct across the country. His investigative work is incredibly thorough and deeply depressing, but is completely free of the usual Reason smartass tone and is presented independent of any political affiliation. He’s a brilliant and principled writer and, if this was a just world, he would have won a Pulitzer by now.
John Cole
@cs: I don’t disagree that they, in the past, have been on the right side of many issues. Which just makes the recent stupidity even worse. The website reads like Hot Air or the Corner these days.
Xanthippas
I’m telling you, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m eagerly looking forward to these beatdowns of those clowns at Reason. Keep up the good work JC!
valdivia
@Cat Lady:
that was so snarky good.
I am wondering now if libertarians ever read Hobbes?
Brachiator
@cs:
But this is exactly part of my problem with “Reason.” There is, morally and philosophically, a big difference between Bush and Obama. “Reason Magazine,” and the libertarian perspective in general, is blind to these distinctions.
And this is the other problem. What the Bush/Cheney regime was doing to the country required more than sniping from the sidelines.
And note that I am not disagreeing with your assessments. What you say is very good, and helps me to figure out what annoyed me about the magazine and libertarianism in general.
They proceed from the assumption that government is bad, especially as it interferes with economic life, but they don’t make a distinction between bad, corrupt, malicious or tyrannical government. And they really have little concept of good government.
pseudonymous in nc
We can say that one of George W. Bush’s genuine achievements was to make the Reason crowd look less like a bunch of selfish, privileged lily-white assholes.
liberal
@John O:
Why oh why would you redesign the tax code and focus on income, not wealth?
For starters, taxes should first land on economic rent collection, like the unimproved value of land, because that represents value the owner didn’t create but rather just sucked out of government and the community.
And as for income versus wealth, a flat tax on wealth (putting aside its practicality) would be far, far more progressive and just than any income tax.
liberal
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
While I’m all in favor of taxing “liquid” wealth, a much better way to get rid of the shell games is to emasculate the parasitic financial sector via regulation, as well as things like the Tobin tax.
In terms of wealth taxation itself, the best tax (in fact, the best tax of all, not just amongst wealth taxes) is a tax on land value. Why?
(1) It’s efficient. The unimproved value of land is an economic “surplus”; taxing it away introduces no economic distortions (viz, no deadweight loss).
(2) It’s just. Land value isn’t created by the owner of land. This fact has been known to economics (albeit frequently forgotten by the profession, as it’s apt to whore itself out to the highest bidder) for centuries, ever since Ricardo devised the theory of rent. Probably goes back to Adam Smith.
Big added benefit of land taxes is no more real estate bubbles, as well as no more keeping useful land off the market in hopes of a large capital gain later.
liberal
@slag:
Very easy to define “soda”: liquid beverage with a glycemic index above some number X.
Paulie Chestnuts
@cs:
CS, this may be petty of me to be harping on it for such a long time, but I distinctly remember Balko having an old Agitator post where he said that if he were a Congressman/Senator/etc. and one of his colleagues were a closet communist he would have the guy thrown in prison.
The fact that he definitely posted this within the last decade always tempers my appreciation for his civil rights work.
joe from Lowell
I disagree. The Reasonoids never showed any respect for the radical Bush critics, while they fluff for and defend anything the teabaggers do, no matter how racist, not matter how violent the imagery.
…for the same reason you can’t see stars when the sun is out?
liberal
@TX Expat:
Which is really funny, because property is DEFINED by government. (You can have possessions w/o government, but not property.)
liberal
@Seanly:
Biggest problem with libertarians is that they (along with most other people) fail to understand that government typically redistributes wealth from poorer to richer, not the other way around.
Paulie Chestnuts
My problem with libertarians is that:
1. They don’t seem to acknowledge that dismantling a welfare state will definitely harm the most vulnerable members of society
2. If they do acknowledge #1, they don’t care.
It’s one thing to want to bring about libertopia, it’s another thing to be secure in the knowledge that whatever are the ‘growing pains’ of such a transition will not be detrimental to you because you are employed, financially well-off and healthy.
Stefan
Having the CEO of an all-American/massive multi-national company
Umm, how can you be “all-American” and “multi-national” at the same time…..?