The Unintended Consequences Of Getting What You Want: Part 2

First, let me apologize for not writing as frequently as I'd planned. Life has had an annoying habit of getting in the way lately, as well as some of the fire being burned out of me due to some infighting with people I thought were friends and fellow conservatives - turns out they were neither. Go figure...

Every once in a while, however, along comes a story that just deserves to get ridiculed, and this is one of them.

The socialist utopia formerly known as the state of California has proposed a new tax. That's not all that shocking, I admit, until you learn just what they're going to tax - fuel efficient cars. They won't be taxing the cars themselves, per se. After all, who would buy the ugly Prius if it got taxed more than that much nicer looking - and almost as fuel efficient - Corolla sitting next to it in the dealership's lot? The government would never do anything quite so........gauche... Would they?

Not when they can tax how many miles you drive every year, they wouldn't. That's right, folks - California State Senator, Mark Desaulnier (a democrat), has proposed a tax....on the miles Californians drive...in their more fuel efficient cars, hybrids, or just plain electric cars...that the environmentalists and the government pushed so hard for people to drive...

Why? Well, as in all things having to do with economics, liberals aren't as smart as they profess themselves to be. See, even with California's ridiculously huge gas tax of almost $0.53 a gallon (but it's the greedy oil companies that are price gouging you, don't ya know?), because hybrids and their ilk are becoming more prevalent and using less gas, the state isn't getting as much revenue from their huge tax. Yes, liberals, that's right - if you tax something that people use, they tend to use less of it, which leads to less tax revenue - which in Liberal-Land apparently means new and/or higher taxes are needed.

Well, we certainly can't ask the government to do with less, can we?

It's difficult to understand how - in a state with roughly 30 million registered vehicles - slightly less than one million of these cars could affect their bottom line so much that a new tax is needed.

Liberals never cease to amaze, do they? Their answers to everything they deem problematic always seem to be one of three options, with very little variation:

Option 1: We just haven't spent enough money on that problem/issue. Let's create yet another government agency to do the same things that this "failed" agency couldn't get done. We need to raise taxes.

Option 2: The government hasn't even tried to fix this problem/issue, so we need to create a new government agency to look into creating a different new government agency that can look into the possibility of thinking about launching a study that might bring about the probability that pondering the possible solutions to this problem/issue would actually solve this problem/issue. We need to raise taxes.

Option 3: We need to raise taxes...

On second thought, they really only have the one option, don't they? ~ Hunter

Fascism, California Style

The California Assembly has passed a bill and sent it to the desk of Governor Brown for his signature to put into law. "What's the subject of this bill?" You ask. Good question, and the answer is nothing short or pure, unadulterated ridiculousness.

California is proposing to ban - meaning make it illegal -for stores to use "single use plastic shopping bags." Yep, you read that correctly. The bags that nearly every store in the nation uses to pack your purchases in for you to carry them home will be illegal in CA. Their stated reasons are to save the "environment and small animals."

Noble sentiments, to be sure, but is the government really the best avenue to accomplish this?

For the record, even as an "evil, dirty air and dirty water conservative," I have no problem with the desire to preserve our environment. I don't even object to reasonable laws, such as anti-littering and anti-pollution laws. It is incumbent upon all of humanity to leave our children a healthy world in which to live. That's almost an automatic understanding for a conservative.

But.......

What I object to is the left's absolute insistence that the government interfere in our lives to the point of making a certain product - usually one that's convenient for the consumer, as well as the most cost-efficient for businesses - illegal, or so costly to use that businesses are forced to stop using said product, whatever it is, thereby inconveniencing the consumer.

One of the definitions of fascism is using the government to force businesses and the citizenry to sell and/or use a certain product/service a certain way. 0bamadontcare, anyone? What this approach usually does is drive up prices. That's proven throughout history.

If you don't want plastic bags used, convince businesses to stop using them. Make it beneficial to consumers to use something else, but leave that decision to the consumers and businesses.

Stop using the government to enforce your social conscience. Let the markets decide what's best for consumers and businesses alike. ~ Hunter