Taxing Us for Breathing...

[Terry Glenn is a cowgirl]

Last week, the New York Times published an extraordinary editorial complaining that "Right now, everyone is using the atmosphere like a municipal dump, depositing carbon dioxide free." The Times editors suggested that the government "start charging for the privilege" by imposing a "carbon tax."

We all knew it would eventually come to this: the New York Times thinks the government should tax us for breathing.

Of course, the editorial was supposed to be aimed at big corporations who build coal-fired power plants--but why should the logic stop there? Right now, eight million people are walking around on the streets of New York City heedlessly inhaling precious oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, treating the skies over their fair city "like a municipal dump, depositing carbon dioxide free." Shouldn't they be forced to pay for the "privilege," too?


And the connection is a logical one, because the generation of power by industrial-scale power plants is as much a vital activity as breathing.
I mean this in a literal, biological sense. In biology, "respiration" doesn't just refer to the act of breathing; it refers to the chemical reactions made possible by breathing. My dictionary defines this sense of "respiration" as "the processes by which a living organism or cell takes in oxygen from the air or water, distributes and utilizes it in oxidation, and gives off the products of oxidation, especially carbon dioxide." (Wikipedia has all the biochemical details.)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/pri...breathing.html

[Harry Boy]

Originally Posted by Terry Glenn is a cowgirl

Last week, the New York Times published an extraordinary editorial complaining that "Right now, everyone is using the atmosphere like a municipal dump, depositing carbon dioxide free." The Times editors suggested that the government "start charging for the privilege" by imposing a "carbon tax."

We all knew it would eventually come to this: the New York Times thinks the government should tax us for breathing.

Of course, the editorial was supposed to be aimed at big corporations who build coal-fired power plants--but why should the logic stop there? Right now, eight million people are walking around on the streets of New York City heedlessly inhaling precious oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, treating the skies over their fair city "like a municipal dump, depositing carbon dioxide free." Shouldn't they be forced to pay for the "privilege," too?


And the connection is a logical one, because the generation of power by industrial-scale power plants is as much a vital activity as breathing.
I mean this in a literal, biological sense. In biology, "respiration" doesn't just refer to the act of breathing; it refers to the chemical reactions made possible by breathing. My dictionary defines this sense of "respiration" as "the processes by which a living organism or cell takes in oxygen from the air or water, distributes and utilizes it in oxidation, and gives off the products of oxidation, especially carbon dioxide." (Wikipedia has all the biochemical details.)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/pri...breathing.html

I didn't know that

[sdaniels7114]

Originally Posted by Terry Glenn is a cowgirl

...because the generation of power by industrial-scale power plants is as much a vital activity as breathing...

You'd nearly sold me, bein' as how us Progressives have never met a tax we don't love. Heck just yesterday I went down to city hall to pay my excise tax bill and joy of joys, I found that I'd get the pleasure of doing that another time. Why was that? Well because in Progressive communities like Boston, city hall is always closed the day before obscure holidays that nobody in the rest of the world has ever heard of; but then you tried to slip that little nugget in. Too much TGIAC.

[QuiGon]

Originally Posted by sdaniels7114

Well because in Progressive communities like Boston, city hall is always closed the day before obscure holidays that nobody in the rest of the world has ever heard of;

That's what things are like in ultra-liberal Massachusetts. I am surprised there wasn't a police detail in front earning double-time-and-a-half to tell you City Hall was closed.

[sdaniels7114]

Nope just a sign. They were erecting a tent I think for the Big Apple Circus on that plaza out front. There might have been a couple of cops looking over that.

Oh and btw the obscure holiday that I was referring to above is NOT St Patrick's day. Everyone's heard of that day. Officially the holiday is Evacuation day. The evacuation being the Brits during the War for Independence. Of course the war itself dragged on for years after this so-called, evacuation Its not like the Iraqis would celebrate if the 101st Airborne division moved from Falleuja to Al Sadir or something.

[Harry Boy]

Breathing Tax
The democrats have been trying to do that for years.

[Real World]

Originally Posted by QuiGon

That's what things are like in ultra-liberal Massachusetts. I am surprised there wasn't a police detail in front earning double-time-and-a-half to tell you City Hall was closed.

"A" police detail? Since when do they use only one person to do a non-existent job, when they could use 3? Or 4, or 5....

But, according to some people, we should love our state because "we're from here", oh, and also because "it's done some good things thourghout history".

[Terry Glenn is a cowgirl]

I wonder how they tax the prostitutes?

Do they tax their ass????