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 1/10 Low --- www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/index.xml
| Dispatches from the 10th Crusade ... |
Friday, May 09, 2008 --- 78 days ago http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2008/05/tax_the_polluters.html
| It is impossible not to be sympathetic to the idea that when someone does manifest damage to the commons, he ought to pay for that damage. Environmental regulations can of course be a subterfuge, a political tool used on false pretenses to sieze power for other purposes. But the fact that a thing can be misused does not dismiss it from public discourse tout court. When the damage to the commons is particularly acute and particularly manifest, it seems to me that it is not unreasonable to place the cost burden for that damage on those who, through their own deliberate and free choices in pursuit of their own benefit, do violence to what is not their own but rather belongs to us all.
For that reason, I suggest that divorced people should pay higher taxes - say a 5% kicker on top of their income taxes - than those who are childlessly single and those who are married to their first spouse. If fault is found in a particular divorce the higher tax rates could apply to the at-fault spouse. If the divorce is no-fault, the higher tax rates could apply to either or both spouses: to whomever chose to pursue the divorce.
How long should the higher tax rate last? Ideally it would last for as long as the damage inflicted on the commons lasted. But given the realities of life in this fallen and mortal world, we are unable to levy taxes on the dead. ... |
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