Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
It is. I don't see it any worse than sin taxes on things like tobacco or subsidies for things like hybrid vehicles. The government shouldn't be deciding economic winners and losers and the government shouldn't be trying to curb or encourage behavior based on their moral view of things.

Big government conservatives are just as bad as big government liberals. Sadly there are too few people who realize the cyclical nature of politics and that power corrupts.
Subsidies for things like hybrid vehicles [or less taxes on them] make sense. Pollution isn't morals it is a deadly, harmful negative externality which isn't dealt with fully by the free market. Pollution from petrol and diesel vehicle exhausts especially in big cities causes immense damage to non-users of those vehicles. By taxing polluting vehicles more than non-political vehicles the government is nudging the pollution away while letting the consumers in the market choose the winners and losers.

Similarly for tobacco. Since the government spends a fortune on healthcare [your government spends a higher proportion of tax dollars on healthcare than ours does on our NHS!] it makes sense to capture some of that back by the heaviest users of healthcare. Tobacco and gambling taxes are voluntary taxes anyway, don't be a fucking moron and you can avoid all of those taxes. If we could fund our entire government with voluntary taxes we could easily avoid I'd be happy.