Slashdot Mirror
City Councilman: Email Tax Could Discourage Spam, Fund Post Office Functions
New submitter Christopher Fritz writes "The Berkeley, CA city council recently met to discuss the closing of their downtown post office, in attempt to find a way to keep it from relocating. This included talk of 'a very tiny tax' to help keep the U.S. Post Office's vital functions going. The suggestion came from Berkeley City Councilman Gordon Wozniak: 'There should be something like a bit tax. I mean a bit tax could be a cent per gigabit and they would still make, probably, billions of dollars a year And there should be, also, a very tiny tax on email.' He says a one-hundredth of a cent per e-mail tax could discourage spam while not impacting the typical Internet user, and a sales tax on Internet transactions could help fund 'vital functions that the post office serves.' We all know an e-mail tax is infeasible, and sales tax for online purchases and for digital purchases are likely unavoidable forever, but here's hoping talk of taxing data usage doesn't work its way to Washington."
Berkeley is a college town, so a large block of voters are students with no long term interest in the community. So a lot of kooks get elected.
No-one's explained -why would I want to fund the post office?
I just get spam and bills and rubbish. If it cost loads for these clowns to post me rubbish perhaps it would dissuade them and they'd have to actually provide value. The post office should be helping me by preventing it; instead they've stated they need all the spam to survive. Well, I'd rather they not survive.