[L]awmakers who signed the [anti-tax] pledge and want to legalize and tax cannabis are in the clear. "That's not a tax increase. It's legalizing an activity and having the traditional tax applied to it," he says.[...]"When you legalize something and more people do more of it and the government gets more revenue because there's more of it ... that's not a tax increase," he explains. "The tax goes from 100 percent, meaning its illegal, to whatever the tax is."Traditional tax applied to weed? Have you paid a tax on any back street weed you have bought? What's Norquist smoking? A typical micro-managing government tool, masquerading as anti-big government. You don't shrink taxes by taxing new products.
Friday, October 25, 2013
The Supposed Anti-Tax Guy...
Grover Norquist tells National Journal:
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When it's legal, people will just grow it themselves.
ReplyDeleteAlcohol prohibition ended in 1933. You couldn't brew your own beer until the 70's and you still can't distill your own liquor. There's no way they're going to let us grow our own. Taxes must be collected.
DeleteJust in the same way as doing business with the Iranians costs you 100% of ...hey wait a minute it might cost you everything....if The Man catches you but if he doesn't well hence the failure of the War on Drugs.
ReplyDeleteAnother supposed-ed liberty minded conservative exposed as the statist con he is, nice job Wenzel.
ReplyDeleteYou are miles off on this one RW, and you sound like a moron for it. Norquist is right. I guess your anti-tax stance would include being a proponent of alcohol prohibition so that the gov't wouldn't get the normal tax receipts from beer, wine and liquor sales? Come on man, you're smarter than this.
ReplyDeleteA true anti-tax stance includes being a proponent of abolishing the tax on alcohol. The post is implicitly clear on this. Consider it for a moment then re-evaluate who is sounding like a moron here.
DeleteCan you elaborate? How is Norquist right?
DeleteAbolishing the tax on alcohol and criminalizing the creation, possession and consumption of alcohol are two fundamentally different things. If you could step back for half a moment from your ideological purist dogma, you would see that the benefit to both society and the liberty movement from decriminalizing then legalizing the personal possession and consumption of an herb far outweighs the imposition of a new tax.
DeleteNorquist is correct in that it is not a tax increase. Decriminalizing/legalizing would allow the authorities to make a new tax on a new item. That is to say, they would set the tax rate. Norquist's pledge is not to raise taxes. Thus, setting the rate of a new tax on a new item that has gained legal acceptance is not raising taxes. Pretty simple stuff really.
I understand your goal is to legalize weed, even if it means allowing authorities to tax it, but atempting to differentiate between raising taxes and setting a new tax on a new item is at best an exercise in semantics which doesn't withstand even the basest scrutiny.
DeleteWhat is simple is this: no prohibition on alcohol or weed, and no tax on them either. Taxation in any form offers no benefit to the liberty movement. This isn't ideological dogma, it's the cold hard truth.
I disagree firmly that raising taxes and setting a new tax on a new item is mere semantics. However, it seems that our opinions are divergent enough to preclude any meaningful debate on that matter.
DeleteAs for ending prohibition of weed or alcohol... This is ideological dogma that attempts to uphold a purist vision without understanding the pragmatic situation surrounding the illegalization of marijuana. I am sure that I do not need to mention the negative effects of the drug war, the prison-industrial system or the personal liberty destroyed by its legal status. If it requires accepting a tax on the substance--which we can fight to be higher or lower--then yes, I would accept a tax in order to end the legal and physical risks required by of individual to carry in order for that individual to exercise their personal liberty. It's a matter of trade offs. Risk being jailed for months to years or pay a [hopefully not outrageous] tax. Here in Colorado we have successfully legalized the personal recreation of free individuals and now are fighting the tax fight. Does the fact that we must again fight the authorities to minimize the taxes that we asked for mean that we've lost? No. We have won because no one will ever be thrown in jail again for exercising their liberty and consuming a substance that they deem worthy of consumption. That is a massive victory for freedom and liberty. I still wonder if people like you and RW would have been opponents of ending alcohol prohibition simply to keep your tax-is-slavery dogma pure.
As for Anon 5.35pm's comment down below: I am happy to live in a state where the freedom of individuals extends to what substance they desire to use recreationally. If being happy with a little more personal freedom than 48 out of 50 other states makes me a statist/tax your balls off/socialist... well, I don't know what to say to disabuse you of your silly opinion. cheers.
Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito
DeleteWell said, Anon 11:33. Lovers of liberty oppose prohibition as adamantly as we oppose taxation. We do not concede the right of the state to tax us for our personal consumption choices any more than we concede their right to lock us up for exercising them.
Deletesavingspace37: if meaningful debate were important to you, initiating it by insulting the editor of this blog in your opening sentence is perhaps not the most effective approach.
So you stand your ideological dogma and won't make a choice--locked up or taxed?
DeleteHow bloody childish. No surprise, really. It's exactly this sort of rigid idiocy that keeps libertarians and the liberty completely marginalized.
And the above thread would indicate that, in fact, initiating by insult is a good way to start a debate.
It IS a tax increase because the only natural tax position is zero percent taxes, and any 'libertarian' who claims this isn't a tax INCREASE (and is being serious) is a fraud who can never be trusted to know the right position. Why? Because they haven't got the cojones (or the smarts) to know that ANY taxes are immoral. You do not defend taxes EVER, if you are a real libertarian.
DeleteIt doesn't matter whether it is "practical" because one can simultaneously cheer the legalization of weed AND still say that there should be no taxes over it, or that taxes over it are an increase. What is the government going to do? Say they really are in favor of legalization but then decide to go against it because people feel the government shouldn't be making a profit off of it? They would immediately expose that getting money out of it is their only concern.
And what is Norquist going to do? Because he feels this is not an "increase" will he always be happy with the tax over weed?
An illegal substance does NOT equal 100% taxation for obvious logical reasons. It is a false equivalence. Therefor this is not in any way a "decrease" of taxes. Taxes are obviously a way for the state to extract funds, while an outright banning doesn't have any such rationale behind it. Muddying definitions of actions and words does not make you right.
Any whinings about "purity" is just that and shows that even among libertarians, some either simply don't "get it" or don't have the guts to be honest. When will you people learn that you gradualists have done NOTHING but lose? What supposed high ground do you have? Have we seen a gradual shrinkage of the state?
You want to accept taxation on weed because it is the lesser evil to you? Fine. But don't come here defending Norquist by agreeing with him that this is not a tax increase. Try to fool statists into accepting that garbage but don't think you can pull it on us.
P.S. Libertarians will remain "marginalized" because what they want is what the majority does not (yet) want. Not because they are "rigid". Those that are not libertarian consider everything libertarian to be "rigid" or "extreme". If the general public is not libertarian, yet accepts you, it is because you play ball and are a coward. Look at how little difference there is between liberals and neocons and yet look at how they talk about each other. Look at how pro-war and anti-war people talk about each other. Pro-environmentalism people and skeptics. See any "acceptance" there?
Your beltarian dream of respect and acceptance is a pipe dream.
We won't make choices? Maybe we make two choices: pro-legalization while remaining anti-taxation.
It is no different than being pro-income while remaining anti-income tax. Get it?
Now look in the mirror: who really is the moron? For me, it is the guy who thinks bending over won't make his rear end hurt.
Hear, hear, Tony!
DeleteSS37: clearly this is a debate, but it's hardly meaningful. You grasp at distinctions where none exist, you insist upon a strawman's choice, and you show a predilection for the ad hominem (which only invites more in response). Entertaining perhaps, but not meaningful.
He distracts people from the real taxation - spending and the Federal Reserve. It's like he took advantage of a popular theme - anti-tax, small government - in order to make himself popular among the Cocktail Party.
ReplyDeleteI understand what Norquist is saying. He just sees current sales and tobacco taxes as a baseline. He doesn't have the same "tax is theft" mentality that I have, for example.
ReplyDeleteRight @ ghst6149 If people would be allowed to grow it, the price would fall dramatically, because it is so easy to grow, and thus the "tax" stolen by the government would be a pittance.
ReplyDeleteSavingspace37 is close to the Historical track. The War Against Moonshine came because "Them damn Rev'noors" would not allow manufacturing of alcohol without paying the tax. There is already a Tax on marijuana and you incriminate yourself if you attempt to grow weed and then pay the tax.
ReplyDeleteThe intent, however, is still fairly dirty. The assumption is that the Gummint has the right to regulate and tax so-called "Mood Enhancing" drugs and paraphenalia. Ask the Indians who used peyote as part of religious ceremonies. Hell, ask the Mormons about Polygamy for that fact.
Never let a good time get in the way of a good tax.
CW
Name-calling aside, I'd say savingspace37 has a personal interest in legalizing dope. From the coherence of his arguments I'd say he'd be a big contributor to Norquist's new gummint revenue stream.
ReplyDeleteProhibition is equivalent to like a 1000% tax. Not only do you pay many times more than what the product would be worth were it legal but you also risk imprisonment for possessing it. Legalizing cannabis with the consolation that the government gets to tax it is like reducing the tax that is already on it by 95%
ReplyDeleteTraditional tax applied to weed? Have you paid a tax on any back street weed you have bought? What's Norquist smoking? A typical micro-managing government tool, masquerading as anti-big government. You don't shrink taxes by taxing new products. commercialista
ReplyDelete