[SES1066]

Thus grows the legendary Mrs. Grundy, the town biddy who wants to control behavior; "for your own good"! There is nothing in life that cannot be taken to the excess - INCLUDING THIS! Social manipulation like this is the start of 'Mama knows best' and continues until there is a knock on your door at 3am with the voice saying; "Food Police - we know you have chocolate in there!"

Ideally taxes are levied for actions and needs that cannot be done by the individual. They SHOULD be only sufficient for the taxing authority to do its job and no more. Taxing to affect human behavior should be STRICTLY AND FOREVER FORBIDDEN!!!

[DrC]

“Taxing to affect human behavior should be STRICTLY AND FOREVER FORBIDDEN!!!”

I concur entirely, but that horse left the barn long ago. Leaving aside “sin” taxes on alcohol, tobacco and gasoline (isn’t driving a sin now that Al Gore has shown us NYC soon will be inundated by a 20 foot rise in sea levels?), which are a pittance in the overall tax picture, we now have over $1 trillion a year in “tax expenditures” (i.e., taxes foregone) aimed at encouraging us to buy houses, health insurance and an endless supply of other things that Congress decided were not being consumed sufficiently under a free market.

Changing behavior is a pretext: raising revenue is the hidden agenda behind most of these tax levies.