Illinois Treasure Hunt – Legislator Wants a Vice Tax on Strip Clubs

Illinois legislation just doesn’t learn from its mistakes. They have spent decades making the State of Illinois unfriendly to high-paying manufacturing  jobs to the point - that companies still considering US locations, like Caterpillar Inc, for building industrial plants turn and run the other direction. So the State has had to begin to rely on tourist and entertainment venues to replace the lost income.  Traditionally those industries do not offer workers as lucrative salaries as the manufacturing jobs they are replacing. That means less money for the workers  and less income tax revenues for the State. So you would think the State would be seeking to avoid over taxation of those industries, especially the few that pay their workers on a scale similar to those industries that the State has run off. Nope, My Bad,  this is Illinois where our State legislators looks to milk every nickle and penny possible from any industry fool enough to locate inside the State.

In a a legislative treasure hunt -hidden inside a worthy cause- Illinois State Senator Toi Hutchinson seeks to add a $5 per customer pole (vice) tax to strip clubs around the state, to help fund rape crisis centers and other sexual assault assistance organizations. She stated that her reasoning for singling out strip clubs was: “If you’re going to sell sex and alcohol, then bad things sometimes happen, I’m hopeful they’ll work with me to take some of the stink off their name.” Bad things happen. Why yes they do. However strip clubs are just one of many entertainment sources that promote sex and/or alcohol. But that is hardly a reason to identify Strip Clubs as the source to dam a river of human evils created by numerous tributaries. Perhaps she should start adding a $5  per person vice tax to stores that sell Playboy, Hustler, Penthouse and a host of other adult oriented magazines. Those tend to get heavily sexually graphic and suggestive. Most, also  contain stories intended to stir-up the human libido. Since I mentioned stories -why is she neglecting bookstores and libraries across the State from this tax. Many of he books in both institutions contain sexually graphic material, some also contain sexually violent content.  And don’t forget lets hit all stores that sell or rent mainstream movie videos rated above a “G” rating with that vice tax. Movies and their ratings have evolved to the point – where sexually charged material can even be seen in movies suggested for kids under 17. And many “R” rated movies have reached the point where in past years they would have been slapped with an “X” rating, now changed to a more PC title of “NC17″. Two easily come to mind. One, the highly touted Tom Cruise movie -Eyes Wide Shut- which was filled with Bondage/Sadomasochism references as well as hints of Snuff material. A more recent sexually charged movie release was the acclaimed Natalie Portman/Mila Kunis movie, named Black Swan. The psychological thriller was filled with a battle for a dancers soul between repressed sexual behavior versus hedonistic behavior. The movie contains a very explicit lesbian scene between Portman amd Kunis. Yet I have yet to hear Hutchinson call for a vice taxon theaters and stores that offer up the movie to the public.

Hutchinson went on to lament, well this is all about protecting women. Okay. But protecting women from what? There is nothing anymore sexually charging that happens in a strip club that you will not find with similar intent in any of the venues I mentioned. The what is the vice tax really about? It is about what all taxes are about – the government getting their hands on more money. It is about a possible 44 million dollars that state could get their hands on by taxing the industry. An industry that already makes big bucks for the State treasury through taxes and an industry where the workers actually make a better than average living wage. And if the tax were to be applied evenly it might even be salable as do-gooder intended. But the tax is explicitly aimed at one adult  industry; an industry that is easy to attack because of the sex stigmas that surround it. A stigma that is also a part of every other venue I mentioned. And though Hutchinson hints it is really all about providing services for abused women; knowing past Illinois history, we all know that is a pile of Bullcrap! Just like with the profits from the Illinois Lottery -which was sold as a way to rebuild Illinois Schools- the revenue from any vice tax would be placed into the general funds where legislator thugs would spend-spend-spend on their pet pork projects while the organizations needing the money would still be begging for the funds that were diverted away from their intended sources. Sadly, spin-spin-spin, next take-take-take then spend-spend-spend  is the Illinois way. 

Related articles

• Illinois Plans $5 Skin Tax For Strip Clubs, Owners In An Uproar (inquisitr.com)
• Lawmaker Calls For $5 Tax On All Strip Club Admissions (chicago.cbslocal.com)
• House Republicans Seek To Bar Use Of Welfare Money At Strip Clubs (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Strip Club Owner To Nuns: Don’t Judge Us (chicago.cbslocal.com)
• House Votes On ‘Strip Club Loophole’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• The Pole Tax and Mandate Politics (hotair.com)

State of Illinois – Addicted to Other Peoples Money

I don’t smoke, never have. I do not use any tobacco products. I do find some pipe tobacco and cigar scents pleasing from a distance- but up close I cannot stand the smell of any burning tobacco. I literally hate being caught in a room filled with people smoking. Many people feel the same way. I am guessing that is why government, like the State of Illinois, feels that they can stick their hands in the pockets of smokers to steal money, everytime legislators get in a financial crisis.

It is no secret that the State of Illinois is in deep doo-doo financially. They have pork-funded, ear-marked and buried the budget with nepotistic spending practices until they cannot even pretend to be able to pay the State’s bills. As I mentioned in previous posts – this cavalier approach to paying the States bills has created a situation, where sick people dependent on State funding are already facing loss of medical providers.   So instead of actually trying to address spending habits, the State legislators are looking to increase revenue. One way the legislators are looking for increased revenue, as reported over on QCOnline, is that the State of Illinois is considering jumping the tax revenue on cigarettes a dollar per pack. Basically what the State is considering is making a few people pay (in this case smokers) to fund part of those pork projects, ear-marks and friends/relatives badly in need of a paycheck. It sounds like a screw job to me- where people addicted to the habit of smoking are now being asked to  fund the addicted habit of the Illinois legislation – spending other peoples money.

I dearly wish smokers would all just throw away their tobacco products  (I am sure many of them wish I would quit eating beans, onions and garlic- especially when I am sweating)- but sticking a gun in their face and unfairly robbing them of their paychecks, to pay for the even nastier State Legislators addicted habit of spending other peoples money, is just wrong. It seems to me that the smokers should all band together and sue the Federal Government and the State of Illinois for extortion, persecution and whatever else they can think of suing the rat-bastard  legislators over. It is high time the legislators of the State of Illinois learned to balance a budget instead of stealing other peoples money to finance their legislative  fantasies.

Stimulus Fails to Produce

Here is a recently released big surprise: According to an AP study, all that huge sums of taxpayer supplied government stimulus money for road projects – did not help unemployment numbers! Of course the only individuals that should be surprised, are the lemmings following the pied piper tunes played Barack Obama and the Porkulus Worshipers. The opportunities for unemployed Joe and Jane working class citizen showing up at a construction site with their pick and shovel -hoping to get hired to fix your road- are minuscule at best. Those jobs are bid by companies that already have labor pools they choose from. Some are legal workers, some not so much legal.Worse yet – those jobs are very seasonal and the availability is tied to weather conditions.

My guess is that if you want to find the real benefactors from all that taxpayer road funds -you will have to explore numerous government bureaucracy paper trail mazes. My guess is that you will find that much of the money has or will wind up in the hands personal and political friends and family of the state and federal government bureaucrats hired with the money to spend the money on projects. For tips on how that smoke and mirror process works – the researchers might ask Barack Obama’s former Illinois political cohort – Rod Blagojevich. Now Blago is an Obama ally that could probably tell researchers just how to milk all that federal money to keep self, friends and family rolling is all that Porkulus money.

The article I linked to above did say that it looks like the stimulus money did help save some jobs. Of course it also stated that the legislation was so cluttered with provisions that it was impossible to tell what worked, to what extent anything worked and how to replicate any positives there might be hidden inside the bill. Gee you think maybe some Congressional earmarks and legislative bribes might have influenced that clutter, confusion and cost effects? The article does not even go into the insane amount of money spent in the package to create non existent jobs and/or a handful of jobs that paid pennies to workers. If business’ had to spend the amount of money that Obama did -to create jobs – they would go out of business. Too much money is lost among government bureaucracy, when it starts to involve itself in business dealings and/or social programs. Now they want to hand out more stimulus money, plus many legislators are still pushing for a public option insurance program. Yikes! The government is too inefficient when it comes to spending money. There are just too many unchecked nepotism-founded fingers -in the government subsidy pie- to trust them to operate business and social programs efficiently.

Obama Spins and Fiddles

Media selected President Barack Obama continues to lose credibility concerning his campaign promises to cleanup Washington. His promise to fix Washington DC Politics has become a joke as the pork-laden bills are rolling out of Congress at a very expensive rate. Can new and bigger taxes on everyone be far behind? Plus another of his White House Staff nominees set to help Obama cleanup Washington has stepped aside. It seems that Charles Freeman, the Obama administration’s choice for National Intelligence Council chief has taken his name out of consideration. Among his other shortcomings a statement in a CNN article stated that Freeman previously declared that the Chinese government did not crack down quickly enough on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989. It sounds like Obama also has a soft spot for Communist sympathizer advisers to convoy his Obama Socialist Strategy. Of course as long as the lemming voters continue to dance and sing when Obama spins his false prophet message of hope and change – Obama can fiddle the night away as Rome burns down around him.

Update

Well it seems that Barack Obama has broken more of his campaign promises. During his campaign and rise to President the Messiah-wannabe Obama was going to drive the moneychanger lobbyists out of the Temple called Washington DC! Oops that has not worked so well. In fact, according to a Michelle Malkin post– Obama has just given extra special consideration exemptions to allow two more former lobbyists to join his administration. One lobbyist is associated with La Raza, an organization trying to open our borders further to illegal alien invasions.

Drive Less Pay More

or

The Government Taketh as the Middle Class and Poor Get Poorer

For years upon years the government has been trying to find ways to make the US public drive less. The high gas prices last year did just that. Of course the problem is that Government programs suckle off the buxom tax teat that is created from drivers cruising the roads of the United States of America. Now that people are driving less, government legislators are crying that they need more $$$ to fill up the lost revenue as the buxom tax teat needed to pay for road repairs and all those special pork projects is drying up and shrinking. In true government fashion they have formed special committees to study the problem. The answer was clear – increase taxes! That way the fat cats in the government gets their greedy hands on the $$$ by taking more cash out of the pockets of Joe and Jane Average Citizen and making it more difficult for Poor Boy Billy to even start his car. Drive less –  pay more.

Tax – Tax and More Taxes

Quad City Online had a story on its site about how property owners are very unhappy with their property tax assessment. No surprise there! Despite struggling to keep out of being classified at poverty level for years – the Rock Island Co. answer has been to increase taxes on the hard-working Rock Island consumers and homeowners. No tax is too steep for RI Co. legislators! It is beyond ludicrous what property taxes are in this County. And despite a nation-wide property ownership crisis that has caused property values to decrease the deeply seeded Nepotistic one-party-rule Democrat leadership continues to find ways to jab the property tax bills even higher.  I guess we wouldn’t want any of the local politicians friends and family not to be able to keep feeding off the government’s treasury teats . What was it QcExaminer said the other day, Oh yeah – Boston Tea Party anyone!

Joe Biden Needs to Raise Taxes – Caution Nepotism at Work

I was reading a CNN story covering where Joe Biden was preaching and justifying the Obama-Biden plans to resurrect tax and spend policies while also making phony promises that they would not effect the lower income workers. Right—- and if you believe that smelly load of malarkey, I can probably get you a good deal on some ocean-front property in Arizona. Living in Barack Obama/Democrat controlled Illinois and a gerrymandered Democrat Controlled Illinois district – Hallelujah Brothers and Sisters, I heartily believe Joe Biden when he tells me that he and Barack Obama can justify raising our taxes. All I have to do is look at my property taxes and other state of Illinois and local Rock Island Co. Politburo championed taxes to understand how much Obama like-thinking politicians love to raise taxes on everyone. As I was reading the article the first thought that came into my mind was a Stephen Barr article I read on the Washington Post site talking about how many tax deadbeats are on the Federal Payroll. He was talking about how much money, $1.23 billion, government employees owed in the October 2007 IRS report. No wonder – Hi I’m Democrat Al Franken and I mismanaged my money and didn’t pay $70,000 of my taxes but I want you to vote for me, a Tax Deadbeat, this fall so that I can become a government employee and tax the hell out of your life while helping to manage and spend Trillions of dollars of hardworking US citizens money – is running for MN US Senate office. It seems that government work seems to attract Tax Evaders. Plus since many of the people working in government got their job through nepotism/insider networking -(government legislators never had a friend or relative they could not justify raising our taxes to create a job for)- we can safely assume that many of those same tax evaders are relatives and close personal friends of the same Democrat and Republican politicians out there justifying raising our taxes. The government loves to justify taxes it is how legislators keep their friends and relatives off unemployment and from living in their basements. USA Government Legislators, like Joe Biden, have never met a tax they could not justify!