The choice isn’t up to you — Edison won, just as you’ve decided to be the Tesla of your generation. The choices are yours to make, and the choices are the best choice you’ll ever make.
I’ve been sitting on a blog about the idea of a ‘prohibitionist’ tax for the last week or so… and that’s prompted us to open a discussion on it, too.
I’ve just put a blog into effect to discuss whether a Tax (or Taxation) Bill (or Taxation Bill) to remove the tax on alcohol ought to be introduced. While I haven’t read the draft Bill and I’m sure that some of the arguments about its content are invalid, I thought that if anybody had an opinion, which I hope many do, it would be interesting to consider.
The point of a Tax is to support public services – and it is obvious to any sensible person that a tax on alcohol consumption can support public services by:
Reducing the harm from consuming too much alcohol, which causes crime, violence and the risk of accidents;
Reducing alcohol poisoning in public places such as pubs, restaurants, bars and nightclubs;
Limiting availability to people on a low income who drink too much and therefore can no longer afford to go to the shops or buy their own alcohol;
Giving people the financial freedom to pay for other things, such as cars and other goods;
Reducing the number of drunk drivers in particular, particularly for young people;
Reducing the number of people who end up in hospital and having serious health problems from alcohol poisoning;
Making it more difficult, and expensive, for young people to drink alcohol and lead a healthy life;
As well as reducing the harms from alcohol, a Tax can contribute to reducing the overall levels of alcohol consumption, which is important because in the long term we’re all in the same situation when it comes to alcohol consumption, because alcohol is a very cheap and harmful drug, at least in the short term.
Given that the harms from drinking are very small, a Tax on alcohol makes sense. It is also an easy way of cutting alcohol use. It also works to encourage people who are interested in alcohol to stop. That’s why we want to see a Tax.
So, my question is what would a Tax on alcohol be?
The first problem is that not everyone thinks that a Tax is the way to go, and so there’s a bit