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Texas Politician Wants Violent Games Tax

Posted by Zonk on from the worse-than-cigarettes-by-far dept.

Gamepolitics reports that a candidate for the Governor of Texas would pass a violent games tax if elected. From the article: "The Amarillo Globe News is reporting that Republican gubernatorial candidate Star Locke wants to scrap Texas' current property tax system. Instead, Locke would institute new taxes on abortion providers, soft drinks, and violent video games to fund the state's government. Locke, a rancher and builder from Corpus Christi, favors a 50% tax on violent games, as well as a $10,000 tax per abortion and a 10% levy on sweetened soft drinks."

4 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. So let me get this straight....... by wckdjugallo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If he was elected he would get rid of a tax he has to pay. And replace it with taxes he won't pay since they would be taxing services he obviously doesn't use? How is that fair?

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  2. Texas is the new Utopia by Godeke · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Good grief, I'm as big of a video game fan as anyone, but this isn't about video games but a scary way of thinking.

    "I take the position that the Founding Fathers took: that the power to tax is the power to destroy. So our concept is that we need to tax things we don't want and you want to not tax things that you want to encourage.

    Ah, there is the epitome of sustainable government taxation: tax things you want to destroy. Sometimes I wonder what powers these politicians... it sure isn't brains. See, if you succeed in destroying the taxed items, then you have no tax base. So destruction of the taxed items clearly can't be the goal in such a tax proposal: it would deny the government the monies it needs.

    So if your goal isn't to destroy the "sin taxed" items (since under his model you only tax things you don't want) then the reality is that you want to encourage or sustain the sin taxed items to help raise funds. Ah, isn't that a great idea? Get elected by claiming that you will remove taxes from things ordinary good folk want, such as property, and shift the burden to evil gamers, loose women and sugar fiends. (Wow, has Texas really become so utopian that those were the worst they could find? My trip to the Dallas BoardGameGeek convention sure didn't make it seem that way.)

    One wonders if the people are smart enough to realize that fully funding your government via sin taxes turns you into something similar to Las Vegas, where sin is fully encouraged as long as the taxes are collected. Of course, the prior story on politicians ignoring the facts probably explains this all away anyway.
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    1. Re:Texas is the new Utopia by pla · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ah, there is the epitome of sustainable government taxation: tax things you want to destroy.

      ...Like "personal income" and "sales"?


      Gotta agree, these guys certainly don't think very much about the consequences of the laws they create.


      But then, I have increasingly grown of the opinion that ALL involuntary taxation needs to end, immediately. Not that I expect that to happen, nor will I stop paying my yearly extortion money to the government, but culturally, we NEED to lose the mentality best summed up in the "death and taxes" cliche. "We" don't need to pay taxes. "They" need our money to use it on police and militaries so they can enforce all the other BS laws that no sane human would ever consider "good".


      I'll gladly pay for roads, for schools, for libraries, for social programs that benefit everyone (like truly universal healthcare, not of this half-assed system we have now). But when the single biggest chunk of my income goes, involuntarily, to fighting a new holy war, I have a problem with that. And for anyone who considers this rant to have gone off-topic, consider - How would you categorize the Christian Right's campaign against all things fun, free, or Islamic?

  3. A $10,000 tax on abortions and you focus on games? by Reality+Master+201 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How about fact that this suggestion effectively make abortion unavailable to the poor in the state of Texas?

    This proposal is a raft of bullshit intended to get votes from Christian conservatives and frightened, reactionary idiots. And no doubt, one significant purpose of this proposal is a backdoor attempt to make abortion unavailable de facto to one segment of the population.

    Pro- or anti- abortion, don't ignore the important issue - the videogame tax is a minor part of the significance of the proposal.