{"id":4997,"date":"2009-06-28T13:02:41","date_gmt":"2009-06-28T18:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4997"},"modified":"2009-06-28T13:02:41","modified_gmt":"2009-06-28T18:02:41","slug":"sin-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4997","title":{"rendered":"Sin Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t remember this garnering a lot of attention on the part of the media or blogosphere when in January the legislature passed a sin tax (although <em>they <\/em>won&#8217;t call it that) to curb the excessive use of yet another damaging substance:<\/p>\n<p>Water.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/local\/west\/49344912.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUT\">Before approving the higher rates this year<\/a>, Minnetonka City Council Members  Brad Wiersum and Tony Wagner wanted to know whether the change to graduated fees  was showing signs of working.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Have we changed behavior or have we raised revenue?&#8221; Wiersum asked.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>In the first year, &#8220;We changed behavior slightly, but not to any  significance,&#8221; Wagstrom said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Personally, I think watering your lawn and treating it with chemicals is silly and wasteful, especially in Minnesota where it will be frozen to death a few weeks after you have achieved green carpet nirvana. My opinion notwithstanding, municipalities should charge residents what it costs to deliver clean, safe water.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and not a penny more.<\/p>\n<p>In the past, if we&#8217;ve had a shortage, cities have relied on watering bans or odd\/even day restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;but that doesn&#8217;t raise any more revenue now does it? And in the end, people that use more already pay more.<\/p>\n<p>The sin tax on water is yet another violation of the principal of &#8220;government for the people;&#8221; another attempt to raise revenue and increase government influence under the guise of a crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t remember this garnering a lot of attention on the part of the media or blogosphere when in January the legislature passed a sin tax (although they won&#8217;t call it that) to curb the excessive use of yet another damaging substance: Water. Before approving the higher rates this year, Minnetonka City Council Members Brad [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-tyranny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}