Tax And Spend

A New York state senator, Frank Padavan, has proposed an extra three per cent tax on everything New Yorkers buy for their dogs, cats, hamsters, or birds, a so-called Paw and Claw Tax.

According to this Fox News report, NY already has an outrageously high sales tax, which, when combined with city and county taxes, can top out at 9.5 per cent!  Of course, the good senator assures New Yorkers that this tax will be going towards animal shelters.  The article's author correctly exhibits a slight skepticism and points out that most tax proposed for some program or fund doesn't generally end up serving that program ("Just like every penny raised in Social Security taxes goes right into your Social Security trust fund. Not!)

It doesn't surprise me.  New Yorkers deserve every tax hike they are charged.  They like to think of themselves as the US's most "progressive" bunch so it seems they're putting their money where their hearts are.  Kudos, and Up With The Taxes!  Help The Poor! Etc.

Here's a telling excerpt from the piece:

Economist Tom Sowell once added up all the hundreds of billions of dollars that the government spends on poverty programs—everything from food stamps to Medicaid. The total was so large that if you just divided that huge number by the number of poor families in America, you could raise the annual income of poor families to levels solidly in the middle class. In other words, if you just canceled all government poverty programs and used that cash to cut a check for every poor person in America, there would be no poor people in America.

Food for thought.