Morals by taxes

Gov. Christine Gregoire released her ideas Wednesday on creating taxes to generate $605 million to help pay for the estimated $2.8 billion deficit.

Sin taxes are nothing new. We have taxed cigarettes and alcohol because they are not necessary for a person to live, and regardless of the taxes, it will not impede people in paying for these “sins.” But over the years sin taxes have become a way to modify people’s behavior.

Drinking too much alcohol and smoking are bad for you, so we tax them so high that people will be forced to quit. Too bad the reality is alcoholics are willing to stop car payments, avoid purchasing food for their kids and commit bad financial decisions to continue drinking.

The change to enforce a public moral through taxes received little resistance over the years. Usually alcoholics and tobacco addicts agreed they wanted to quit.

But increasing taxes to enforce a new set of morals, such as what is good for you to eat or popular environmental causes, seems to reach beyond acceptable limits.

In the name of nutrition, we are no longer able to eat foods cooked in trans-fats oils. King County restaurants were required to post nutritional information. A few extreme food organizations have a long list of food they want to ban — from sugar and salt to any kind of meat — and remove the public’s freedom to choose.

Gregoire appears to have sided with the food lobbyists, anti-tobacco groups and “climate change” environmentalists.

She is seeking new taxes on:

• 5 cent tax per can of soft drinks — Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, etc. — to generate $96 million

• Sales tax on candy and gum to generate $28 million

Nothing but sugar. These make you fat and rot your teeth. Should we treat them as tobacco and alcohol? Does personal responsibility in nutritional decision making matter when trying to curb social consumption of food the governor thinks is bad for you?

• $1 per pack of cigarettes to generate $89 million

Poor smokers.

Here are taxes to reflect Gregroire’s stance on global warming:

• Bottled water would be taxed 1 cent per ounce to generate $135 million — Oil is used to make the plastic the water comes in

• Tripling tax rates on oil products to generate $493 million — This means gas and diesel. We can enjoy the costs passed on to us for transporting retail goods.

• Raising pollutant tax from 0.7 to 2 percent to generate $148 million

Instead of taxing us to curb behavior the governor thinks is bad for us, she should focus on state spending. These proposals appear to ignore the financial problems our state has faced for the last few years.

Spending more tax money than we make.

— Editorial board