<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Monday, November 14, 2005

Rifle-shot statism 

By TigerHawk at 11/14/2005 08:00:00 AM
If you ever wonder whether there's a limit to the statism of the editors of the New York Times, look no further than today's editorial on home heating oil prices. Iowa's hayseedish but smarter Senator, Chuck Grassley, has apparently suggested that oil companies donated 10% of their third quarter profits to helping poor people cope with high home heating fuel prices this winter. Grassley, whose constituents have to fend off a lot of cold weather in the typical winter (and who -- on average -- grossly overheat their houses, I might add), can be forgiven a little Big Oil bashing. But here's what the Editors had to say about it:
This is a new low. If it's in the public interest to help poor Americans keep the heat on in the winter - as Mr. Grassley's official attention to the matter attests - and if Mr. Grassley is correct that oil companies have a responsibility to help out, then Congress has both the obligation and the power to tax them for that purpose.

Just keep reading that sentence: "If it's in the public interest ... to help poor Americans ... then Congress has both the obligation and the power to tax [oil companies] for that purpose." Huh. Obviously, then, we should tax home builders to help homeless people and food companies to pay for food stamps. We need rifle-shot taxes on health care providers and technology companies to pay for all the uninsured people in our society, and we absolutely must tax authors and publishers of text books to help all the uneducated people (and punitive taxes on the wages of teachers -- don't forget that option!). Nursing homes need to be taxed so that we can take care of the old people who have no access to nursing homes, Intel and Microsoft absolutely should pay for computers for people who don't have them, and I honestly don't know why we don't tax Wal-Mart to pay for anything that any poor person might need from Wal-Mart's inventory.

Finally, we should tax the New York Times to pay for TimesSelect for all the poor people otherwise unable to pay for it. How else will they exercise their civic duty and vote properly the next time around?

Permalink - - Main

3 Comments:

By Blogger Gordon Smith, at Mon Nov 14, 09:17:00 AM:

um...to be fair...I don't know any nursing homes that took in $10,000,000,000 in the last quarter while receiving government subsidies.  

By Blogger Lanky_Bastard, at Mon Nov 14, 11:45:00 AM:

I think Tiger's point is the logic doesn't follow. He's absolutely right. (wow, I may never have said that before)

Tiger was not advocating the way people were ripped off for gas (though he may someday, I can't speak for him). His point was that the Times advocacy of a specific retroactive tax isn't a solid principled idea and moreover, their logic is flawed.

Quick point of order- it's still statism even if proposed by a Republican Senator.  

By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thu Nov 24, 05:48:00 PM:

Our gas prices have come down to $2;62  

Post a Comment


This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?