Tax The Poor!

Fellow gun enthusiast and friend Jeff Soyer brings up an non-gun issue that is causing hate and discontent in his home state of Vermont: the legislature imposing a tax on home heating oil “in an effort to show that Vermont is concerned about global warming.” Most Vermonters think this is a bad idea. Even the liberal Burlington Free Press thinks this is an idea that should die aborning. While the feel good legislation might make the socialist legislators feel as if they're 'doing something' about global warming, they are in fact hurting those Vermonters that can least afford to pay even more for heating oil.

Writes Jeff:

Staying warm in the Winter is not an option, it's a requirement for living in the state. Heating oil (and LP for that matter) are already at near record highs and short of tearing down all the big 100-year-old farmhouses in the state, there isn't much that homeowners can do about their heating bills. Sure, a bit of insulation here, better windows there. The fact remains that most can't afford to do even that, much less bear a (estimated five cents a gallon) heating oil tax.

Talk about adding insult to injury.

Jeff adds:

As President Reagan used to say, "Government isn't the solution. Government is the problem."

Of course I wouldn't put it past the Vermont State House putzes to raise a tax someplace else to help subsidize heating oil or propane purchases for those burdened by the heating oil taxes, the very burden that these same putzes created. The logic of such thinking never ceases to amaze or amuse me. And here I thought that the Democratic party was supposed to help the 'little guy'.

Yeah, help him right into the (unheated) poor house.