One reason that statists give for growing government is that it is virtuous.You can always trust government to get it right, and to treat everyone according to the highest of moral standards.
Reality on the ground is somewhat different. When it comes to tax revenues, legislators across the country are willing to operate with very low moral standards. People’s addictions to tobacco and alcohol are already being taxed. Marijuana taxes are gaining ground, as are gambling taxes. In Ohio the state and local governments are trying to get their hands on more gambling tax revenues, leading to generous agreements with casino companies.
The Columbus Dispatch reports:
The settlement between Columbus, Penn National Gaming and (to a minor degree) Franklin County is supposed to be finalized by Friday, and several big steps are expected this week to end the war over a central Ohio casino. Tonight, the Columbus City Council is to vote on the settlement itself and appropriating the $15 million the city is to pay Penn National for environmental cleanup and roadwork. The city won’t have to actually pay the money until Penn annexes, which will be four to six months after the company applies. Penn’s filing is required within 10 days of the court’s approval of the settlement agreement. On Tuesday, the Franklin County commissioners are supposed to vote on their part of the settlement.
Ohio governor John Kasich is also working hard to get his hands on gambling tax revenues. Recently the Cincinnati Enquirer reported:
One of Gov. John Kasich’s two new gambling consultants struck a deal with the state to receive a percentage of every dollar in new casino revenue it helps generate for the state.
One reason why addictions are so attractive to government is that addicts spend more, and more frequently, on the product they are addicted to than those who are casual consumers. Therefore, a tax on an addiction-forming product effectively sends a message from government to the people: if you want money for virtuous causes, you getter get addicted.
In fact, the suggested virtue of government spending makes it amazingly easy for people to escape the moral questions associated with addiction-based taxes. Even smoking tobacco can become virtuous. In 2007, the American Academy of Family Physicians advocated a higher federal tobacco tax to pay for an expansion of SCHIP (“Medicaid for Kids”).
Apparently smoking is not against sound medicine if it is taxed.
A similarly brazen approval of tobacco addiction came with a bill this year in the Louisiana legislature to raise the state’s tobacco tax. In the same category of government cynicism we also find a proposal by Libby Mitchell, last year’s Democrat gubernatorial candidate in Maine. Mitchell suggested an increase in the state’s alcohol tax to pay for an expansion of state-funded college education. Essentially, the message was to parents to have an extra bottle of wine, or two, every week or else their kids might not be able to go to college.
It is not a big step from taxing gambling, tobacco and alcohol to taxing marijuana. The city of Denver gets considerable tax revenues from its medical marijuana tax. Part of the money goes to fund crime prevention programs; if you live in Denver and want less crime, you better join the joint junkies… The idea of taxing pot addiction led a Democrat state legislators to introduce a bill this past spring that would legalize marijuana. The purpose, of course, was to make it a taxable product so that the state could get money off the backs of yet another group of addicts.
The question whether or not it should be legal to gamble or smoke pot should always be kept separate from the greedy economic interests of government. When politicians think with their budgets and not their moral compasses, they tend to go trawling in very muddy waters for more revenue. Tobacco and alcohol taxes were originally sold as a way to deter smoking and drinking, but have now become indispensable sources of tax revenue. If we add gambling and marijuana taxes, then what comes next? Will the greed for more tax revenues drive politicians to legalize prostitution?
Or will the moral decay that comes with each new addiction tax serve as a wake-up call regarding the role of government in our lives?
