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I don't really mind the tax. I am not a heavy drink, more of a light social one. Maybe this will help curb the drinking problem I see in our society. I know when cigs hit $5.50 a pack, I quit that week! The more alcohol is taxed, the less I want to drink. Then again, its different for every person.
I much rather see marijuana legalized and taxed to hell, but thats not going to happen. How many people die a year from alcohol related deaths? Now how about marijuana related deaths.
100,000 to 0.
i dont see it as the governments job to decide what is and isnt good for us and then control what we can afford by raising taxes on the things they deem bad for us. reminds me of demolition man.
Ok... take your rantings about marijuana elsewhere...
And what drinking problem do you see? just because a handful of people are stupid doesnt mean that everyone should be punished.
Alcohol is a huge social ill in our country. I have no problem with taxing alcohol or cigarettes heavily, as it forces consumers to internalize more of the costs of their decision to consume these things.
With that said, I drank over twenty beers yesterday, and I wasn't slurring my speech or stumbling, so this tax will fall heavily upon my peers and I. Still good policy,though.
With that said, I drank over twenty beers yesterday, and I wasn't slurring my speech or stumbling, so this tax will fall heavily upon my peers and I. Still good policy,though.
This is a tough one, as we are still paying for the increase due to gas prices (they blamed delivery cost. Yeah, it costs a fortune to import from Brooklyn....).
Anyway, here's teh thing. You don't like it? BREW YOUR OWN!!! I have been thinking about it myself for a while! If a decent beer goes up past $40 a case, I am getting the kit and doing it myself.
Working in NYC and seeing beers (GOOD beers) going up over $5 to $6-$8 is tough, but that just limits my nights out. If the tax goes up by 25% (which would mean haw much, exactly? I hate it when numbers are thrown about w/o anything to say what the end cost would be), how much does that translate to in a bar? 50¢? (They pay less than $100 for a keg of most stuff. How many beers is that?
About 120 pints of beer. That comes out to less than $1 a beer in materials cost. (80¢). If half of that is tax now, as suggested by a previous poster: 40¢. A 25% increase on that IS TEN FRIGGING CENTS.
I think I can afford that.
The key here is finding out what is really happeing with this stuff. what is this increase, really?
And lastly, we have a budget deficit. It is fine to say "cut spending" until our already failing bridges and overpasses start crumbling and hitting cars passing under, or become unpassable and VERY expensive to replace.
It is fine until they start laying off city workers and we have long lines at the DMV and other city run municipalities.
It is fine until school budgets get cut to the point where no-one WANTS to teach anymore and we have more problems from uneducated youths with nothing to do (it takes time, but there is a connection).
I am not saying that we should just keep spending, but the problem comes when even cutting back to our original (with inflation) spending, we do not have enough to pay off the additional expense on the interest on our debts on our current taxation levels in a deficit.
I am not defending Corzine on this, but I can't stand it when people start ranting and raving about how horrible everything is and offering up such sound solutions as "stop spending" when we all know it is not that easy.
Bottom line is, although I myself am a heavy ber drinker, I would rather see taxes be placed on PURELY OPTIONAL ITEMS than on things like my income or, got forbid, my food (like they do in other states).
It is all right to be pissed about this, but c'mahn! You got a better realistic solution to all of this?
But seeing how I can get a bottle of McAllen 12 year for about $42-$45 at a discount store (who makes a profit), the cost for a shot is rediculous!
They will charge about $10-$12 per GLASS for this stuff. That is about 10 glasses per bottle (20 shots), which works up to a 250%-300% markup!
So, lets do the math. Say they get a good deal and they buy the booze for $40. You say that 50% of that is taxes so that is $20 in taxes. Increase that by 25% = $25
Thats $5 more per bottle. If they passed that cost DIRECTLY to you, the price on a glass would be upped by about 50 cents per drink.
So instead of $11 a glass it is $11.50?
The horror. I will never be able to afford my kids education after getting S-faced on that!!!!!
I'm not a drinker at all, so the tax won't have too much of an affect on me...
but how much will the beer prices go up at the Meadowlands if beer gets the tax treatment??
Quote:
I would rather see taxes be placed on PURELY OPTIONAL ITEMS than on things like my income or, got forbid, my food (like they do in other states).
I agree with this as well. I have no issues with taxing nicotine and alcohol, and the fact that I use neither is probably the main reason why.
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