New Mexico Videogame Tax Proposal Fails

[Raan_Amano]

You do realise that tax arent about taking money? They are about distributing money for the good of the society at large.

Of course it is. But milking the people dry is NOT good for the society at large. When the tax burden is so large, a family needs several incomes in order to make it to the next week, there's a problem. When people would have more money by NOT working, there's a problem. When 6-figure salary doctors pay less taxes than their minimum wage secretaries, there's a problem.

Doesnt the US have progressive tax? I always thought we did.

But there are some perks on having very high taxes, 100% free education and 99% free healthcare isent actualy rather nice. On the other hand low tax systems allow more individual progress but they also leave the poor and lower class people behind.

If by "progressive tax" you mean "living wage", then, no, we don't. Apparently, people in our government see a living wage as being like the EU (because European countries tend to have one). That and the rich corporate leaders don't want to lose $1Mil a year just to pay their minimum wage workers a decent wage. So, your average minimum wage worker, working 2 jobs (with the recent wage increase), still has a hard time making ends meet.

Everyone who says that a 1% tax isn't that much is absolutely right. However, it's the principal of the tax that we have a problem with. You're condemning gamers as a whole because of some parents who are "too busy" to go out and do things outdoors with there kids thus, contributing to obesity. And yes, I agree with The_root_of_all_evil when he said that about some parents. There are many who absolutely do not want to raise their kids. They pawn them off on whomever they please.

 

[ChrisP.Lettuce]

Yeah I am glad that this bullet was dodged. If one state allowed it, who knows how it would snowball. 2-3% in all of North America? *Shudder*

 

[Junaid Alam]

There is a built-in bias in this sort of legislation that is largely overlooked because it's almost too obvious.

The way these things get rolling is a bunch of 'concerned parents' start petitioning their local leaders on a grassroots level over video game habits and kids' preferences toward it over playing outside. Then someone comes up with the brilliant idea of linking this to some ideological push to highlight how great it is to be outside.

Now of course all the adults who play games don't get chided along these lines because, well, they're adults, but they'll be paying these taxes too.

At the same time, I've never been a fan of the 'these parents don't know how to raise their kids' line of argument. That smacks too much of the 'welfare queen' straw man argument, where you take anecdotal evidence or a few cases and then cynically extrapolate to smear a whole swath of people.

Parents didn't suddenly forget how to raise their kids. There are deeper social shifts at work. For one thing the two-parent family model is no longer in the majority. For another, a lot of women work now (though real wages are hardly double what one man alone made in the Golden Age), so parental options are limited. There are few company-provided day cares, let alone government-funded ones. In these circumstances, you'd want to at least have your kid at home when you're not there rather than wandering some state park.

Every society must make its own decisions and establish its own priorities, and whether it openly admits to what these priorities are, and what the consequences will be, changes nothing. So if the emphasis in America is on 'worker flexibility' and 'company loyalty' and 'career advancement' - then the external costs associated with these decisions cannot be magically made to disappear.

 

[Arbre]

They should stick huge solar panels on the consoles, so you'd need to got out to play Halo and Mario.

And it's ecology friendly.

 

[sammyfreak]

I will do that when they develope screens that work well outside.

 

[renahzor]

I live in NM and this is just another in a long list of taxes being proposed every year by the state. This tax would do nothing more than fund other projects that are so far overbudget that they cant see daylight. Theres already adds on TV every day about getting out and seeing all of the beautiful open space NM has, adding a tax wont encourage people to get outside.

As far as progressive tax, he means people pay more taxes based on brackets for their income, and yes we have a progressive tax. The more money you make the higher percentage of your income you pay in direct fedral income tax. If you ever wonder why we dont have a solid living wage you should talk to some small business owners in your area. Im part of a family owned small Construction company. Every 1 dollar we pay to someone coasts us 2.50 or more. So that laborer high school kid we picked up for 8 dollars an hour costs the company 20. Between matching all of the employees taxes, insurances, etc the ammount you make is only a portion of whats being paid out. Most people go through life and never realize this. And now theres talk even at the state level of requiring businesses to pay for socialized health care. A little secret many people are unaware of is those costs go right back to you, we as a business dont actually pay them. Yeah, we write the check to the IRS, but the consumer pays the cost, not the company. It means our prices go up, and if we lose customers for being slightly too expensive, people get laid off.

Luckily this tax was pretty transparent and shot down, but there will be more attempts like this. The more you ask the government to do for you, the more they reach into your pocket book to do it. Oh well, i suppose personal responsibility is a thing of the past. People need the government to raise their kids for them and remind them to play outside. Ill remember that when im out playing teeball or running around the park with my 4 year old this weekend. we may even play some wii tennis if its cold out, if thats alright.

 

[Meshakhad_v1legacy]

This actually might be a good idea. If you're going to levy a new tax to raise money for an educational program, putting said tax on a highly profitable industry isn't a bad idea.