Those Kansans eager to see a tax imposed on sex businesses or their goods and services shouldn’t hold their breath that the Legislature will oblige. Testimony before a legislative committee this week underscored how tricky such taxation can be, both logistically and constitutionally. Do you tax certain products and services? Do you tax certain businesses? And if a 10 percent excise tax would generate only $1 million a year in state revenue, it hardly seems worth the bureaucratic hassle and costs of the inevitable legal battle.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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15 Comments
Sin taxes simply give the state a financial interest in making sure people keep sinning.
It is their hope that it is true that porn is addictive. Look at the cigarettes tax, studies have proven that tobacco is addictive. The states and feds have raked in millions, Taking advantage of that addiction. But little of the money actually go to smoking prevention or healthcare. Nor does it stop underaged smoking, the kids were use to paying five dollars a pack to someone old enough to buy them.
Sin taxes never work as claimed, the law makers know that. Now if they really want to make money tax milk and bread. Maybe peanut butter and jelly. Those have as much to do with crimes against women as porn does. Plus there are far more consumers of food items as there are for porn.
Next, they’ll tax dirty words.
I better shut up then LoL
R.D. It was like the Tobacco Settlements some years ago. I was reading the North Carolina recieved 148 million dollars from the settlement. This was suppose to go to health programs and tobacco prevention. But it didn’t. 90% of it went to, guess what, the Tobbaco industry. Including a $50 million to build a large tobacco drying plant, farm subsidies to tobacco growers, tobacco trade promotion for overseas, and the state employee pension fund invested the rest in tobbaco company stock.
LOL! Funny!
RD, to say that “peanut butter and jelly” has a much to do with crimes against women as porn does is niave and stupid. Porn can be addictive, just ask any mental health expert who has studied the effects of porn on sexual predators. With certain personalities, it’s not just a harmless pastime. Did you know that although other violent crimes are decreasing, the number of rapes have increased over the last few years?
“… the effect of porn on sexual predators”….does not mean that porn is addictive. Sexual predators are deviants who have something wrong with them, regardless of the availability of pornography. The supposed link between pornography and sexual crimes is tenuous at best. Yet, the morality police are baying about banning porn, taxing it, etc. and have jumped on this “addiction” bandwagon as a means of justifying their actions.
The claims that the existence of porn puts strains on families is equally suspicious. What about the married couples that like to shop for adult toys together? Is that a strain on families? A healthy family unit is not going to be threatened or otherwise ’strained’ by outside influences.
Increasing rape rates? Could that be related to the extremely graphic and violent video games that show humans as just targets? Could it be due to an increasing lack of father figures and decline of the nuclear family? There could be millions of causes, the existence of an adult book store is really a reach as a cause of increase rape cases.
Sin tax? This is just another attempt by the religious fanatics to bend the public to only one way of thinking and behaving. What is next, compulsory church attendance? Then how do we determine which church is the ONLY one to go to? Since every one of these religious wackos are convinced that there is only ONE TRUE church, how do we force people to go to that ONE?
Sin tax? I sincerely hope our legislature recognizes the folly of this and gets back to business of government instead of extending religion.
Sorry Ray, the studies show that porn can be addictive and is often fuel for sexual predators. Just because you say it isn’t so doesn’t mean it’s not. Do your homework, then tell us how it really is. Maybe when you’ve seen as many victims of rape and sexual abuse as I have, or your daughter, wife, sister, or mom become victims, you’ll see things differently.By the way, I’m not a Christian. My views have nothing to do with religion.
The point being that a lot of different factors may go into a sexual offender. Porn is just unpopular, Ted Bundy’s revelation that it was porn that drove him to be a serial killer came after many attempt to stay his death. He was looking for someone to put pressure on the Govenor and the anti-porn forces were happy to have him as a poster boy.
Billions of dollars a year! Did Ted have that much or did he have help?If porn truly was a deciding factor than the majority of those that view it would be hiding in the bushes waiting for their next victim.Do you know what are the leading sources for the images that child molesters collect? Is it Demark, the far east? No it is Sears, J.C.Penny, parents magazine.Should those be ban? “Your Honor I was driven to it by the cute, little nine years old in the swimming suit section in Sears spring collection!”.
The evidence for these researches is called “common thread” the test subjects had this in common. The problem is the evidence must be weighted on wheither any other common thread has an effect that is exculusive to their actions or reactions. To use my line, if they all ate P.B.& J sandwhiches as a child then that is a common thread.And if only those that ate the sandwhiches became sex offenders then it could be said that was the cause of their acts.
If they were the only ones to view porn that would be a vaid reason to ban it. But since all the serial killer and rapists in the U.S. if they pooled their money would not have several billion dollars a year every year to support the porn trade. Then there are far more viewing it that do not offend.cause and effect is the real issue, the problem of your arguement and of those researches that you would site. Is that porn is not an excusive factor to the crimes. by its self does not cause them to become a sex offender. They may view it, they may collect it, but as to a real effect it is not exculsive.
It is not like everyone that drinks from a certain well get sick. That is an excusive factor and points to that well as the source.
It seem to be a tread, you have a foregone cunclusion and can find information to support what you already had decided was the problem. If I did not like milk and wanted it ban. I am sure I can find that some really bad people had drank it at some time in their life. I now have the common thread to justify my move to have it banned. But the real reason I want it banned is that I just do not like milk.
Tax me! Tax me! but let me watch an x rated move once in awhile. Scratch the above, I see them on cable now. lol
Damoon On this we can agree..Yes porn can be addictive. It appeals to many human weaknesses. Voyeurism, masterbation, etc.It can feed into some of the pre exisiting conditions,but they would have to be there in the first place.( I know an oxymoron, pre-existing=the first place)
Anything can be addictive if over used. Coffee, tea, soda, etc. The internet has more to do with porn addiction than the sex shops. The differnce between is that internet porn is the worst kept secret. The shops have their rather plain looking signs hanging in public view.
I never stated that porn causes people to become sexual predators, only that it fuels those who are predisposed. It serves no useful purpose, only to demean women and children. Child sexual abuse and sex crimes are much more common than most people realize, and porn does nothing but condon the idea that women are objects to be used for gratification.Sorry guys, as long as I live, I will do everything I can to discourage anything that exploits women and children.
The problem is that you are not distinguishing your own statements. You use the term “sexual predators” but you refuse to acknowledge that not everyone is a sexual predator. These people are going to commit crimes whether they have porn or not.
And before you jump on the band wagon about knowing women who have experienced sexual abuse, let me just say that I AM ONE OF THEM!!! And I still say this tax is pointless. The most harmful types of porn (i.e. child pornography) are already illegal, and they still happen. Taxing porn is not going to make a difference, if anything it will encourage it because of the “thrill”. There are better ways to deal with the “perceived” problem.
I don’t agree with porn one way or the other. But I do think that human beings were given freedom of will for a reason. And I do believe that we live in a country that is free for a reason. Taxing things like this only serve to work towards taking our freedoms away. Pretty soon you will tell me that telling my child “no” in public is illegal.What someone chooses to watch in the privacy of their own home is their business, not ours.
I don’t remember insinuating that everyone is a sexual predator.It funny how I never grew up in a sociey where sex shops or porn were considered part of the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution, my how things have changed!! Then, using your logic, I guess it’s really niave to have any laws protecting community standards because the next thing you know, no one will even be allowed out of the house!!!!! It’s amazing to me how you see things in such black and white. Our society has changed a lot in the last 40 yrs, many things not for the better. We owe it to our children to try and preserve a culture where they are nutured and protected. I worry more about that than the right to do whatever makes us feel good.
I’m sorry about your sexual abuse, but thinking that providing porn to perpetrators will lessen their acting out, or that limiting their access to it will make acting out more thrilling to them is just not how it works. The more you feed this crap to a culture, the more the incidence of sexual abuse will rise.