Sin Tax

In the 1990’s, Bill Clinton introduced the concept of a “sin tax”. The goal of a “sin tax” is to change the behavior of people through the taxation system. It works under the property of elasticity – the greater the amount of the tax increase on a product, the fewer that product will be bought and consumed. Bill Clinton proposed increasing the tax on a pack of cigarettes to the point that the price would become so high, that it would dissuade people from smoking. He also claimed that the extra taxes raised would be used to pay for his government run healthcare plan which ended up failing along with this “sin tax”.

President Barack Obama immediately re-introduced the “sin tax” into the federal government after taking office. In February 2009, Obama signed the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act into law, which raised the federal tax rate for cigarettes from $0.39 per pack to $1.01 per pack. He claimed the increase taxes would help pay for the cost of the increased coverage under the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

The Democrat-run Congress, that year, also proposed increasing taxes on soda, as a way to reduce obesity, and on alcohol, to reduce the negative effects of alcohol consumption. Their sin taxes were not only targeting “sins” that were unhealthy, they also proposed a Stock Transaction Tax, to dissuade stock speculation, and also a Vehicle Mileage Tax, to reduce the amount of fossil fuels burned by automobiles.

Using a “sin tax” to help reduce the consumption of fossil fuels to combat climate change, is common among Democrats. Barack Obama’s secretary at the Department of Energy, Steven Chu, believed that gas taxes should slowly be increased to wean people off of fossil fuels and force them to turn to alternative energy sources. He said, “Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to levels in Europe [$8-$9 per gallon].” But instead of increasing the price through taxation, Democrat Presidents prefer to use their energy policy to enact their “sin tax”. In 2009, Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah, and his EPA created new rules mandating the use of 36 billion gallons worth of renewable fuels (like ethanol). Gas prices increased 55% from $2.35 per gallon in 2009 to $3.65 per gallon by 2012.

Joe Biden followed Obama’s lead by using price increases to not only reduce consumption of fossil fuels but eliminate it all together. During the 2020 campaign, Biden said, “I guarantee you. I guarantee you. We're going to end fossil fuel.” He promised to enact policies to eliminate the “sin” of burning fossil fuels for energy. In his first week in office, Biden signed executive orders which canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and drilling permits on federal lands such as Anwar in Alaska with the express purpose to drive up the cost of gasoline to the point that people would be forced to purchase electric vehicles. The national average price of a gallon of gas rose from $2.60 in January 2021 to $4.64 in June of 2022, a 78% increase. Driving a car with an internal combustion engine is now seen as a “sin”, and they have to “tax” that “sin to the point that it becomes so unaffordable that people will be forced to choose another type of vehicle.

Bill Gates said that the energy crisis the Europeans are experiencing right now as they head into winter as a result of the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline is “good for the long run”. It will force people to “move to these new approaches [alternative energy] more rapidly." This is the diabolical way that totalitarians like Gates and Biden and Obama think. German and French people freezing to death this winter will be good for the long run because it will move those countries to alternative energy. The ends justify the means. Mao believed that killing 30 million Chinese would be good for China in the long run because it was necessary for his cultural revolution to succeed. Stalin believed that starving 20 million Ukrainian peasant farmers to death was good for the long run of Russia because it helped collectivize the farms under Soviet control.

In America, price of groceries has soared over the last 12 months, climbing by 13.5% — the biggest increase since 1979. The price of eggs is up 40%; margarine is up 38%; and flour has jumped by 23%. Georgia Gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams said the quiet thing out loud last week, when she suggested that the answer to Biden’s out-of-control inflation is to stop having children, or more precisely, have an abortion. On MSNBC, Abrams said, “Abortion is an economic issue… Having children is why you're worried about your price for gas, it's why you're concerned about how much food costs.” She believes that the best way to deal with inflation is not to have any more children. The Democrats claim to be pro-choice, but they are not really pro-choice at all when it comes to abortion because they want to create an economic environment where a mother has no other choice but to abort her child.

This begs the question, is the inflation we are experiencing at the grocery store, like the inflation we are seeing at the gas pump, all part of a plan enacted by Joe Biden and the Democrats to control the decisions of the American people. In 2019, name brand baby formula cost anywhere from $0.09 per ounce to $0.32 per ounce, by 2022 the price of name brand baby formula had soared to a range of $0.54 per ounce to $1.15 per ounce. This is primarily a result of the FDA’s shutdown of Abbott baby formula plant in Michigan due to a potential contamination, but that happened well over a year ago, and the Biden administration has done very little to fix the problem. In fact, the only thing the Biden administration has done regarding baby formula is to ship baby formula in from overseas which was earmarked only for illegal immigrant mothers, and not for American citizens. The pro-abortion party, the pro killing babies up until the point of birth party, is also standing idly by as the cost of being a parent in America almost doubles. Is this another “sin tax” design to dissuade people from committing the sin of having babies which is forcing pregnant mothers into choosing an abortion?

This is the way the Democrats operate. Instead of creating a country that works for everybody, where people can choose to live their lives how they see best, the Democrats want to put in place policies and taxation strategies which will control the American people and force them into doing the things that they want them to do and live the lives that they want them to live. Why can’t we live in a country that says, ‘if you want to drive an electric car, great; if you want to drive a gas-powered car, great. If you do not want to have kids, great; if you do want to have kids, great.’? But the left-wing totalitarians in our country refuse to give people a choice. They want to force you to live the way they want you to live, and they will do it using the tax code, monetary policy, or legislation, any power at their disposal, and that is why they are ultimately coming after our guns. It gives them more power to control you and me.

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Judd Garrett is a graduate from Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.