Another nanny politico opens his yap
The virtue police are striking again, and this time it’s hitting close to home. New York Upon his recent visit to Rochester, State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz announced a proposal for a 25 cent surcharge on every bottle of alcoholic beverage sold. The money thus raised would go to fund substance abuse treatment and after-school programs.
Ortiz was quoted as saying “It will probably be an unpopular angle as I stand right here, but I believe if we don’t pay today, we pay tomorrow.”
Such nobility! Such willingness to take an unpopular stand! Such a pantload!
He’s definitely right about the likely popularity of the proposal, not just because of peoples’ resentment at having to pay more for their booze, but also because it’s a blanket punishment of every New York Stater over age 21 for the irresponsible actions of one segment of the population. Ortiz’ words veil a fallacious belief: that those who enjoy alcohol in any form are part of the problem, and that, by buying wine beer or liquor, they share some of the moral culpability for those who allow alcohol and far more physically and socially damaging substances (crystal meth, I’m looking at you) to take over their lives.
Ortiz is essentially levying a punitive tax to subsidize abdication of personal responsibility. And he wants to do it by funding programs that work for only a small minority of people who enter them.
I’d also like to know exactly how Ortiz thinks we’ll “pay tomorrow.” More DWI? By lowering the legal .BAC to levels where it’s almost illegal to drive past a bar ad through increased funding for enforcement, New York State is doing everything in its power to increase DWI anyway. We’re already paying to pay for tomorrow. More addction? Is the high relapse rate of addicts who went through rehab purely a result of underfunding, or is it that addiction is a psychological labyrinth from which many people never really break free?
Thanks to Client 9, I guess it’s a good time to make a splash as a defender of public health in New York State. Yankee Stadium has less grandstanding than the Ortiz proposal. It behooves New Yorkers to give it the attention it deserves:
Substantially less than this piece,
-Mark
It’s all too easy to slap “sin” items with more and more taxes. Perhaps the escort industry should be legalized and then slap a hefty $25 per “act” surcharge. Certainly if those politicians can afford $4000 hookers they can afford a tax on that activity. Heh.
If anything, the higher they tax alcohol, the more it will drive people to homebrew their own. Just try to tax me on that stuff!
It’s nice to know that with war, the economy going into the shitter, gas prices, the horrible housing market, budget crunches and a host of other problems that our politicians are focusing on the “real” issues. I’ll be pretty pissed off if I have to end up paying an extra 25 cents per alcoholic beverage I consume because there are assholes out there who cannot control themselves enough to drink responsibly. More complete and utter bullshit from our illustrious politicians.