How’s this for a coincidence? Earlier today I posted an entry — it’s right there, below — about the Bell System and whatnot. I mentioned that there was still a Federal tax on our phone bills that was introduced to pay for the Spanish-American War. I’d heard about this many years ago, it’s one of those little trivial facts that sticks in my head.
Well, just a moment ago, I ran across a news report about this very subject. Totally coincidentally, a television station in Ohio has today done a report on the very same thing.
Wild! What are the odds, do you suppose?
Now, there are calls to repeal this tax, which makes perfect sense. But stop for just a moment and think about this: we’ve been living with this tax for more than 100 years, and would we really see that much difference if our phone bills dropped 3%? Really, one of the major problems with this tax is that no one seems to know where the money goes. Well, why don’t we earmark that money for something? Say, health care? Education? Housing for the homeless? Or use it to reduce taxes somewhere else, say, on food or other necessary items?
I know, I’m one of those tax and spend liberals. Still, that’s better than a cut-revenues-and-spend conservative, isn’t it?
Oh, and then let’s go back to the model of assessing a luxury tax against the extremely wealthy to finance our foreign wars, okay? I really like that idea.
Don’t worry. When one tax goes away, a new one is always created in its stead.