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Wisconsin Mulls an Earmarked Video Game Tax

Posted by timothy on from the earmarks-are-for-cattle dept.

Mearlus writes "A Wisconsin lawmaker is proposing a law to add an additional tax on video games and equipment in order to help cover the costs of moving 17-year-old criminals back into the juvenile system." (According to the article, 17-year-olds are at present treated as adults by Wisconsin courts.)

5 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. How much would it make? by oahazmatt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lawmakers are also not sure how much the tax would generate.
    That depends, would this tax apply to sites like amazon.com? If not, then local chains might suffer more and the tax would make jack.
    --
    Those who believe the Internet is private,
    find their privates are on the Internet.
  2. Neither correlation nor causation by CambodiaSam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wow, the good folks in Madison must be hitting the nog pretty hard. It's obvious the ONLY connection here is youth. My favorite part of the article is how the lawmakers 'Aren't sure how much money would be generated'.

    Can anyone help me understand this or is it nothing more than playing off mythical video game fears and targeting a group of people who don't vote?

    1. Re:Neither correlation nor causation by east+coast · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Can anyone help me understand this or is it nothing more than playing off mythical video game fears and targeting a group of people who don't vote?

      I assume by saying "group of people who don't vote" you're talking about underagers?

      If that's what you're thinking than the answer is no. It's more that they're hitting the pocket books of what they see as a minority of voters because they know it's not going to cause the kind of backlash that actually matters. No one is going to get voted out over this.

      It's like when they tax cigarettes. The cigarette smoking public is about 20 percent, give or take, depending on who's numbers you use. They know that even if every smoker got pissed about it there really isn't so much of a margin to swing the vote. Why don't they tax (or stop subsidizing) the meat industry instead? It's known to be a health problem and it has a much wider tax base. That coupled with obesity is driving healthcare costs (and thus government payouts) way up.

      Oh, that's right. Only about 6% of all Americans are vegetarian. That other 94% are part of the voting public. That's a bad move on election day so tax money helps keep the beef industry alive instead of forcing them to find a way to stand on their own two feet with a product that is in high demand.

      So, no, it's not about the age of the voter. It's about the numbers of voters who have something to lose. If you can continue to pound on minority groups of voters it's not going to produce any real change at the top.

      But than again, it's not like voting between Democrat and Republican is going to cause a real change at the top either.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
  3. Spectacularly, awesomely retarded by WombatDeath · · Score: 2, Insightful
    If you're anything like me, you'll regularly encounter opposing viewpoints and have a mental reaction that lies somewhere between "I disagree but see your point" and "that's a bit stupid". Now and again, though, something crops up which is so breath-takingly demented that I'm torn between horror, hilarity and utter bewilderment. This gem falls squarely into the latter category.

    • Why are all 17-year-olds targeted for the actions of a minority?
    • Why is the age group least able to afford a tax being targeted?
    • Somewhat contrary to the above, who thinks that the average gamer is 17?
    • Which part of wider society fails to benefit from a better judicial system?
    • More generally, in what universe can this proposal possibly make any sense?

    "The idea being that this is kind of a kids-kids thing, in other words, if we're going to do this for kids maybe this would be a good way to go about it. And if it's not the best way, I'm open to any other way"

    Yes, I think it's pretty damn clear that "any other way" is likely to be rather less moronic than this.
  4. Say what? by Yvan256 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    [...] add an additional tax on video games and equipment in order to help cover the costs of moving 17-year-old criminals back into the juvenile system.
    Also planned is a tax on orange juice in order to help cover the costs of people getting sick from smoking and a tax on computer monitors in order to cover the costs of people recovering from sexual harassment at work.