Taxing where the REAL cash is flowing: porn and marijuana
Cash is king. And its flowing. But not so much at your local high-end clothing boutique or restaurant, or mortgage lender or real estate market.
Yes, so much, to porn and other ‘illegal’ activities?
FUNNY UPDATE: 8 of 10 top Porn-Consuming States voted Republican in the 2008 election, Conservatives are the biggest consumers!
A solution to cash-crunched local and state economies? TAX WHERE THE CASH IS FLOWING!
Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, said many lawmakers were loath to tap more traditional tax sources during a downturn.
“What’s pushing it is this incredible desire to raise revenue,” he said. “But it’s coupled with the desire not to raise the general and sales and income taxes.”
Whether such proposals can pass is another issue, though each idea has its supporters. Betty Yee, chairwoman of the California Board of Equalization, the state’s tax collector, said that legal marijuana could raise nearly $1 billion per year via a $50-per-ounce fee charged to retailers. An additional $400 million could be raised through sales tax on marijuana sold to buyers.
The law would also establish a smoking age — 21 — effectively putting marijuana in a similar regulatory class as alcohol or tobacco. Marijuana advocates argue that legalization could also decrease pressure on the state’s overburdened prison system and law enforcement officers.
All of which, Ms. Yee said, at least makes the proposal worth talking about in a state with chronic budget problems and a law already on the books allowing the medical use of the drug.
That would be great, but here’s a better plan: tax the hedge funds, tax the ultra-rich and don’t let unregulated greed line the pockets of individuals or corporations. Its one thing to believe that its American to become rich. Its another to actually have some Americans make billions of dollars of income a year while their industries are being rescued and subsidized by regular working Americans.
Taxing every little transaction might get us over the crunch, but it doesn’t solve the billion dollar problem that got us INTO the crunch.
They don’t want it to be legal because the think they will loose all control over the population and they definetly don’t want that to happen.
Happy people are hard to control.