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It's not a tax on products (like VAT), it's a tax on specific difficult to acquire resources. The costs of some things that you mention (oil, electricity) migh
by cjg 12y ago
It's not a tax on products (like VAT), it's a tax on specific difficult to acquire resources.
The costs of some things that you mention (oil, electricity) might well go up, but the costs of others might stay the same or drop depending on how much of their cost if attributable to labour costs. Locally sourced food might go down in price.
These price changes are exactly what the tax aims to achieve (e.g. lower energy use)
As some other commenters have pointed out, those particularly hard up can be compensated in some other way (e.g. tax credits).
- cbd1984 12y ago> These price changes are exactly what the tax aims to achieve (e.g. lower energy use) OK, come be poor in eastern Montana, with no public transit (hello, increased gas tax!), food that has to be trucked in (hello, increased gas tax!), long dark winters (goodbye, solar!), and cold winters (hello, increased propane tax!). Just because a group is a minority doesn't mean it deserves to get screwed over. It's MLK Day here in America, so it surprises me that this even needs to be said anymore.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoProtip: Don't live far from infrastructure and expect it to be subsidized through tax policy.
- woodman 12y agoTax code artificially makes for "terrible geographic selections". You aren't very far from "Well of course you got raped, look at what you're wearing" logic.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoNo, its not tax code. Its expensive to drag food to the middle of nowhere. Its expensive to drag fuel to the middle of nowhere. Both have externalities that aren't paid for. It is not anyone's right to have everyone pay for their choice to live far from infrastructure that already has a sunk cost.
- woodman 12y agocbd1984 specifically mentions tax, so yeah - it is tax code. In absence of tax the cost would naturally be higher, and that is the price you pay for living in a remote location - but that is a real economic cost of moving the resources. Tax is completely artificial and if the stated goal is a progressive structure, than this is an obvious case of stated goals not matching reality.
- dalore 12y agoOk so I go and choose the most distant area, so now everyone is expected to pay to ship goods to me?
- woodman 12y agoHow could you possibly arrive at that conclusion?
- cbd1984 12y agoOK, how do you expect people to farm and ranch if you don't allow farmers and ranchers to live on their land? You can solve one problem by mandating universal veganism and banning the keeping of pets which are obligate carnivores (cats, mainly), but that just increases the demand for farmers and farming.
- pavedwalden 12y agoI don't mean to be dismissive of the struggles that people in rural areas face, but I don't think that's an apt comparison. There's a difference between being disadvantaged by location (which can be changed) and disadvantaged by ethnicity. Also, Montana residents are free to use the white drinking fountains.
- bryanlarsen 12y agoThe poor are far better off in Saskatchewan a few miles north of you with it's high gas taxes and generous social safety net.