The American Spectator

Appleby| 7.1.10 @ 7:36AM

Interesting that Obama places a tax on White Folks, isnt it? Nobody mentions that, but isnt it true?

Melvin| 7.1.10 @ 8:21AM

Appleby, it just struck me odd, that there is two mabe three wars going or about to be going on. Our Southern border is no more, and Americans are being murdered by Mexicans entering this Coutnry illegally. The deficiet is as high as it was fighting World War Two, and someone out of the blue comes up with a tanning tax.
Its like the powers that be are sitting around the table in the situation room sweating bullets in deep thought in how to turn the war around, and someone pipes up, "Hey how about them Lakers?"

Herschel Krustovski| 7.1.10 @ 9:13PM

Sure its a racist tax. You don't see a similar tax on Right On Curl Activator nor any of the hair straightening products now do you?

saxton| 7.2.10 @ 11:10AM

yes...most definitely against whitey.and I a msick of it and affirmative action..black history month..whitetey jokes..all these set asides for incompent idiots..just for the NON-color f their skin. Sic. Obama is a major racist..bi teleprompter queen.

Richard Baker| 7.1.10 @ 7:59AM

A soda tax is on white folks?

gypsie| 7.1.10 @ 9:11AM

No Dick, I think the tax referred to would be the point of the article, the tanning tax. For obvious reasons, most of the clientele of tanning salons would be white folks.

Be that as it may, your point is taken about the soda tax, which I see as an assault against mostly young people, who drink the bulk of the soda consumed in this country.Be on the lookout for yet more taxes on tobacco -- which fall much harder on the working poor-- and for a jackup in gas taxes, which will hit all of us middle class schmucks who have to commute to our jobs, and don't chauffered limousines at taxpayer expense

Eric Cartman| 7.1.10 @ 9:36AM

Just imagine if Botox was taxed instead. Pelosi alone could pay for both "Bush wars", fund Obama's new "Lets F#@% Up the Health Care Industry" law, pay down the debt and help Greece out of bankruptcy in the first week! Instead they pick on poor Snookie. That alone should be grounds for voting every DemocRat out of office.

Support the Orange People! Obama gone in 2012!

grant1863| 7.1.10 @ 9:37AM

Wonder if an unintended consequence of this tax is to rile up a group that probably voted for Obama in 08 and now (hopefully) feel cheated and that he lied to them. Probably see some more tea-party members out of this.

Clinton nee Publius| 7.1.10 @ 10:00AM

Historically, democracies only last an average of 200 years and then they implode. The usual reason has been that there is no constraints on government spending in a democracy, while taxation has practical limits. This means the people continually vote themselves gifts from their treasury until the economy that supports the government implodes. The Soviet Union's implosion demonstrates the modern equivalent of what happens to a government when the economy that supports it dies.

To this sad tale we have to add the corruption that must occur as a result of lobbying that continually corrupts the taxation process. You start off stealing money (that's what taxation really is) and then you decide who is exempt from being ripped off and who gets the money. Eventually, envy insures that everyone has to get a larger and larger amount of the spoils, while taxation means the spoils eventually get smaller and smaller. This leads to deficit spending (what we call debtor-in-possession financing (or bankruptcy) when businesses do this deed). When nobody is willing to lend you any more money then the economy and the government crashes.

In our economic society, it does not matter whether or not you are a person, a business, a charity or a unit of government - we all obtain money by three (3) methods: gifts; stealing; and, earning it.

We know government cannot be realistically financed using gifts - they are a limited resource and government spending is an unlimited activity.

We know government cannot be realistically financed using taxation (theft) - we have $13 trillion in national debt we can never pay back that demonstrates this point.

We know that if we continue using the methods we use now, the outcome MUST be the destruction of our private-sector economy (gold won't help you one whit) and the downfall of our democracy.

This means we have to come to terms with the only method that will end the corruption and provide the unlimited financial resources a democracy needs to fund its unlimited appetite for fiscal spending - the investment income method.

Finally, there is only one method where this can be found to work and that is the method set forth in Lovellian Economics and known as Capitalism Version 2.0.

When you look at it logically, it's almost like the Fram oil filter commercial from the 1970s - sooner or later you have to do this. You can do it now and make the transition stress-free or you can wait until the economy is destroyed and you are trying to convince a dictator like Obama that this is the thing to do because it would help everyone instead of just the government insiders.

USMCFLIR| 7.1.10 @ 4:08PM

There is a problem with your comment, the United States was founded as a Republic not a Democracy exactly because the founders knew democracies turned out all of the problems you brought up. We need new leaders for our nation not just politicians. We need them to have integrity and not just worry about giving themselves bigger pay raises and taking money from the Lobbies in DC.

GavInTucson| 7.2.10 @ 1:23AM

Very well put. Every time I hear the word "Democracy" used to describe our system of government, it reinforces in my mind how uninformed the populace generally is.

It's interesting to note that the word Democracy began to slip into the national dialogue at around the time FDR came into office. Back in those days, the back of the Army Field Manual described the differences between a democracy and a republic. FDR ordered that portion removed. Not surprisingly, FDR was also the first president to try to nudge us away from the rule of law (Constitution), into the idea of "mob" rule, where the wishes of a simple majority should reign supreme. It's no wonder that the Supreme Court of that era struck down most of his policies as unconstitutional.

If only those soles were alive today.

JR| 7.2.10 @ 1:30AM

Good luck with this. It seems that it takes about 10-12 months for a highly principled person elected to office to begin making deals and ignoring those that put him/her into office. Try calling or emailing him/her about the issues - you're lucky to get any response.

FTM| 7.2.10 @ 1:56AM

My take, I think that the "hole" in the Federal Constitution is that we let any and everyone vote. When the Constitution was ratified most states had very strict rules in regards to what is termed, "Public Franchise." As a result the constitution leaves the Public Franchise issue up to the individual states. Case in point, in Virginia a potential voter had to own property or have money in a bank in order to vote. What this translates into is that the folks that were paying the bills were the ones that were deciding how the money was spent via the ballot box. Fast forward a couple hundred years and you have situations the likes of Florida where state incarcerated criminal convicts are allowed to vote.

President Johnson was a political genius in instituting his "War on Poverty." The policy did nothing to alleviate the condition of poverty. The Policy does pay useless people to reproduce. These people don't know much but they do know that if they want to keep the gravy train rolling that they have to check the box, punch out the hole or push the button next to the little donkey. The genius being that the liberal left, progressive movement gets to use public funding to literally build a constituency.

I don't see a clear way to reverse the trend toward rot. Long live the Republic.

saleboter| 7.1.10 @ 10:09AM

I can see the signs now "Tanning Session - 15% discount if paid in cash."

Dixie Pixie| 7.1.10 @ 11:20AM

Woman and minorities hit hardest first.
Is that not a core principal of the Democratic Party.

Appleby| 7.3.10 @ 8:30AM

But minorities do not pay a Tanning Tax.

Louis Jenkins| 7.1.10 @ 12:36PM

Buffi is agast. So much for the well tanned vote for the Pretender n Chief. Even the white female, many of who gave Obummer their nod, are now on the out and out.

Charles Martel| 7.5.10 @ 5:34PM

SINGLE white females at that. What was Barry's margin with them again?

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Seek| 7.1.10 @ 12:46PM

Poor Snooki. She's bearing the brunt of the sins of Obama. Go Jersey!!

Beltway Conservative| 7.1.10 @ 1:02PM

Appleby is 100% correct. Why is this turning into another one of the great unsaids? This is a tax on white people yet, unless I've missed it, that is never mentioned by the media.

John Nothdurft| 7.1.10 @ 1:20PM

Appleby I didn't even think to mention that its a tax on white people but you do have a point. Although I don't think it was necessarily intentional it should be pointed out. Thanks for reading

Alert1201| 7.1.10 @ 3:36PM

Rush is calling it the Caucasian tax - the tax on white people who want tans.

David| 7.1.10 @ 3:21PM

The tanning tax is a "racially motivated" tax, and we all need to call Bam Bam and the dem congress on it.

It would be the same as if in the name of healthy living a white prez with a repub congress had placed a 10% tax on chittlin's, or ox tails.

Okay....okay...... that may be a stretch, but really, who alone is affected by this stupid tax? White people and only white people. Some salon owner or customer ought to file a lawsuit based on the discriminatory nature of the tax and take it all the way to the Sup Ct. Where are the pro bono attorneys on this one.

Stephanie| 7.1.10 @ 3:52PM

I like ox tail soup!

Charles Martel| 7.5.10 @ 5:39PM

Yeah, what's up with that? I grew up in a French restaurant -- I am the Caucasian poster boy -- and oxtail soup was in the soup-de-jour rotation a couple of times a month.

Good times -- except for those 16-hour days, seven of them every week.

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AMENBRO| 7.1.10 @ 6:17PM

TAX Twerps.
Conservatives out number liberals by quite a clip. We create the jobs & work so this will allow liberals the best opportunity in Centuries to make a REAL Contribution.

Course none of the current TWERPS in the Executive Branch pay taxes now, much less make charitable contributions..

JF| 7.1.10 @ 8:47PM

We better not tell Obama that some folks get tans for free by working outdoors. This administration would be likely to propose taxing sunshine.

T-rex Museum| 7.1.10 @ 9:44PM

Do not understand American politics!

FredTheMoose| 7.2.10 @ 5:58AM

Neither do we, Mate, neither do we...

DSF| 7.3.10 @ 9:04PM

Remember when the government decided to put a tax on luxury boats? What happened? Drove the boat making companies out of business and no taxes were collected since no sales were made. Same thing will happen here. Unlike addictive alcohol and cigs., people will just choose to not go to tanning salons, thus driving the salons out of business and viola! No tax revenue, no 2.3 billion dollars.

dsf| 7.3.10 @ 9:10PM

By the way, that luxury tax was a Bush 1 policy, so stupidity runs both sides of the political divide. So many jobs were lost that the govt. paid out more in unemployment benefits than it collected in luxury tax. Finally repealed in 1993

Charles Martel| 7.5.10 @ 5:46PM

Bush the Elder may have foolishly signed it, but you can be damned sure he didn't write it.

Until only this last decade, the traditional stupidity on our side of the aisle has been to trust the Democrats' assurances that they will reduce spending when we foolishly concur in their creation or worsening of taxes.

We always pay for it at the ballot box; yet somehow, they never seem to. Let's find out whether that's a tradition we can abandon. (And I can see November from my house.)

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artk| 7.15.10 @ 11:16AM

Don’t think about them as tanning salons, think about them for what they really are, skin cancer dispensers. The government has a legitimate interest in limiting the usage of these health hazards. And don’t bring up the one in 50,000 users fighting vitamin d problems, we all know why people use these services. By now, pretty much everyone supports the government’s role in reducing tobacco use, a role that includes both education and taxation. These skin cancer dispensers should get the same treatment.

Louise | 7.15.10 @ 7:35PM

I never saw the cigarette and alcohol tax as taxes to safeguard my health! They are taxes to get money out of the users. They could care less about my health. Tax and spend!

artk| 7.16.10 @ 10:24AM

Louise, it's pretty simple. Raise prices, lower demand. The elasticity of demand for cigarettes in response to price is well established.