Drowning in Red Ink, Don’t Be Surprised if Governments Go Orwellian and Impose Eco-Sin Taxes on Cars & Homes
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
There’s cigarettes, alcohol and . . . protecting the environment?
With governments everywhere running deep in the red, don’t be surprised if politicians everywhere try to raise money by slapping a “sin tax” on people whose actions are seen as a threat to the environment.
The most obvious way to go is to put an eco-sin tax on plastic grocery bags. China, Ireland and other countries have already done it, as have a handful of cities across the U.S. Next up may be New York City, whose mayor, Michael Bloomberg, just said he wants a bag tax, though as you might expect, he said it’s all about protecting the environment, not the $16 million in new revenue it reportedly would raise.
Still, when you’ve got a budget deficit as big as New York’s, plastic bags alone won’t do the job, which may be why local TV news in the Big Apple has recently featured stories on what might be called tailpipe police who stake out streets looking to pull over cars and trucks and test their exhaust levels on the spot. One trucker unlucky enough to wind up on TV got a ticket for over $200.
But bag taxes and tailpipe police still wouldn’t be enough to close New York City’s budget gap. That’s why a car-washing tax also might go on the books.
Yes, we’re serious. A small but growing number of U.S. communities already are contemplating making it a crime to wash a car if the sudsy water flows into a storm sewer. Same goes for used motor oil and other chemicals that befoul water quality.
Frankly, the number of eco-sin taxes that could be enforced by cash-strapped governments is limited only by one’s imagination. Our personal favorite mightn’t ever become a reality, given the echoes of George Orwell’s classic book 1984.
Just imagine a police car going up and down your block equipped with heat-seeking thermal imaging technology. This heat-seeking car would be capable of running scans on more than 1,000 houses every hour, happy patrol officers writing tickets for every offender.
Oh, wait. This isn’t science fiction. A city in England reportedly is already testing the device!
