Private liquor, public whine

[shadesofmauve]

[Note: I wrote this last weekend, and LJ ate it. I didn't want to waste more time being frustrated, so I let it go... and then LJ spat it back out again, so hey! Have a political rant post you might have otherwise been spared, and blame LJ. Twice.]

Starting yesterday, non-state-run stores were allowed to start selling hard alcohol in Washington. I've been generally for this change solely on ethical grounds -- there's a clear conflict in having the agency in charge of regulation be the same agency that sells the product, so separating those seemed like a good idea. For a lot of people, though, it was apparently about the price of their booze.

Today in the new booze aisle at Safeway I was next to a woman who was really bitter about the fact that the state added liquor taxes to make up for lost revenue. Now, personally, I think it's a bit disingenuous of Safeway to not show the state tax in their prices -- they do it at the register, like sales tax, which sucks as a shopper -- but the state tax on liquor is just fine by me. Hard alcohol is not a necessity by any means, and buying it is a choice. This woman was pissed, though, and told me about it. At length.

Because apparently "In Washington the government can't just work things out, so they make the taxpayers pay for things."

Um.

Lady.

Where the hell do you think government funding comes from?!

ALL government income comes from taxation, at root. "Just working things out" without taxation can't happen. The government workers that keep up the roads, make sure your doctor isn't actually a quack on the run from his previous injured patients*, and teach your kids? They need to eat too. And guess what? They pay their taxes! Some of them probably pay more in taxes than you do! And then they go happily pay the state tax on the bottle of tequila so they can forget they have to deal with ingrates like you who don't understand basic civics.

Ahem.

Anyway. It's booze. It's a purely optional luxury.

Perhaps they pay people to complain near the liquor aisle so the rest of the customers want to buy more.

*My dad works for DoH in medical practitioner regulation and discipline, so that example springs to mind.

Comments

[fenmere.livejournal.com]

And another thing! They didn't add the tax on, it was there to begin with, figured into the price in the state run stores.

[shadesofmauve]

Yup!

People don't think. And I have this sneaking suspicion that leaving the tax out of the sticker-price is a nasty game being played to do exactly this -- shift notice away from the monetary effects of privatization and shift blame/anger onto the state. And damn, the state does NOT need more tax whining!

[sinvraal.livejournal.com]

Stuff like this makes me want to invite them up north for a year to see what it's like when you have to pay 15% sales tax (which is never part of the sticker price- you get good at calculating it in your head instinctually) on everything, and your income tax is 30-50%. And then if you own property you have city taxes too.

And then our students are out whining and moaning and disrupting the economy because they want their already staggeringly cheap education to be free. As if free is a thing that exists. Which actually means, naturally, paid for in full by the already radically overtaxed population.

In short, people are asshats and no one is ever happy with what they have.

[shadesofmauve]

In the US in particular, people are stupendously bad at looking outside of their own area for models of how things work differently (or the same) and how we can be informed by them. Or they'll pick an example like yours and refuse to see that maybe, just maybe, there's a middle ground between 30-50% taxation and no income tax at all.

Our state has no income tax -- everything is down to the ~8% sales tax (it's actually lower, but you add on city fees and such), as well as a few even less reliable sources like timber industry money, sell-off of state timber lands, etc. It's a startlingly bad way to run a state, because consumer spending fluctuates more than income, and is much, much harder to project for. The result is that basic services have been cut right and left, tuition (which was already steadily climbing -- my university cost $3500/year when I started $4500/year when I finished) has sky-rocketed, the already piss-poor underfunded state healthcare has been slashed...

...and this woman's bitching that it's 2 dollars more expensive to buy booze.

Aaaand that probably ran a little long, but I work for a publicly funded organization (county property taxes + a cut of timber industry taxes + cut of state timber lands) and my folks both work for the state government, so it's safe to say I hear about these things way too much.

As to no one being happy -- I had a lot of interesting conversations about the cost of public services when I was traveling in Europe. Most amazing were the kids from Scandinavian countries explaining to me that their education was expensive because the state didn't pay for room and board. And a couple in the UK saying their prescriptions and appointments were expensive, until I asked them for actual numbers and told them what mine would be in pounds. Perspective!

[elialshadowpine.livejournal.com]

The disturbing thing is that the state health care here has been far far far better than pretty much any other state I have lived in. I've honestly been amazed at how much they've covered for my disabled housemate, and I know they have cut stuff in the last couple years.

[shadesofmauve]

That speaks poorly for the other states. :( Of course, Washington's a better state to be near/below the poverty line in than a lot of others; I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise. It's great that they've come through for your housemate, at least as much as they have!

[elialshadowpine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I lived in Texas which was AWFUL... basically if you weren't pregnant, you were screwed. And then in MA, which is a little better but still... nowhere near as good.