It’s not that I have a problem with the governor funding the entire state of Ohio off the “sin tax.” We all understand that orange barrels don’t come cheap.
Rather, it’s that they are leaving all the really good sins out.
Sure, sure, the smokers and drinkers are always an easy target. Tax them to heck and back and maybe that will entice them to quit.
Or so the state always says - even as it repeatedly raids the tobacco settlement money intended to promote smoking cessation and uses the windfall to pay for everything BUT smoking cessation.
Go figure. It’s just a good thing that government isn’t expected to make sense.
Meanwhile, there are a plethora of really great “sins” that could be taxed.
To name just a few:
The bad hair tax. This one’s for the guys out there. If you are sporting a comb-over whereby you take three strands of hair and wind them creatively around your shiny pate in an approximation of the “hair that’s not there” anymore – it’s going to cost ya.
The driving others crazy tax. This one is for the sin of not comprehending how a four-way stop works, that “yield” does apply to you, and turn signals are not to be left on all the time “just in case” you might want to turn at some point in the distant future.
All of these infractions should levy an immediate “tax.”
We could probably fund the entire public school system by sundown off the turn signal tax alone.
Tax-free ice cream. The premium ice cream “sin” tax. Is there no greater sin that blowing off the gym to sit home with a soup spoon and a quart of Ben an Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream? I think not.
A tax upon me, er, I mean you. Not that I would ever indulge in such sinful behavior. For shame.
Public display tax. The public display of a crying child tax is up next.
Look, I’m a parent and I know children can carry on. Particularly mine. Which is why I don’t take them to non-animated movies, nice restaurants (those sans lids on drinks and coloring book menus), or lengthy church weddings.
If I did find myself inexplicably possessing of a small child in one of these venues I would immediately remove myself and said child from the vicinity at the first utterance of a whine or wail from the child – or myself.
Failure to remove a crying children from inappropriate vicinities should result in being immediately slapped with a nuisance tax so staggering that the offender could choose between paying the tax or simply funding a new Department of Transportation bridge project outright.
Relieved of money. As you can see, with only a little creative thinking we can come up with endless ways to relieve people of their money with a plethora of taxes that, rather than vilifying only a select few of our friends and family, are equally unfair to all.
Should you happen to be one of those pesky types who think it might be just a tad unfair to tax our fellow citizens for their lifestyle choices or addictions, I believe the state government has an answer for you: “Put it in your pipe and smoke it.”
And when you’re finished, send the governor his dime. It’s the least you can do.
(Kymberly Foster Seabolt sends all the best to the IRS. And some of the not so good to. She welcomes comments c/o P.O. Box 38, Salem, Ohio 44460 or kseabolt@epohi.com.)
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