Post Tagged 'sin taxes'

September 21, 2021

Should morality be legislated?

Should governments legislate morality? It depends on how we define our terms. If “legislate morality” is simply defined as “making laws that are moral,” then it is obvious that we should legislate morality. Continue Reading...

November 06, 2020

Victories for liberty: 2020 state ballot initiatives

Whatever the outcome of the 2020 presidential race, liberty won numerous victories – and suffered a handful of setbacks – in state referendums nationwide. Voters in both “blue” and “red” states endorsed policies to advance individual initiative, limit government overreach, and establish equal justice under the law. Continue Reading...

October 25, 2017

Radio Free Acton: Rev. Ben Johnson on how sin taxes support terrorism; Econ Quiz on Amazon; Upstream on sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle

On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Caroline Roberts talks with Fr. Ben Johnson, senior editor at the Acton Institute, on the pitfalls of sin taxes. Then, on the Econ Quiz segment, Caroline speaks to Anne Rathbone Bradley, vice president of economic initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics and visiting professor at Georgetown University, about the impact of Amazon and whether or not it is a monopoly. Continue Reading...

September 28, 2009

‘Tax adventurism’ on upsurge

From a report in today’s Washington Times: … brace yourselves for a deluge of nuisance taxes, sin taxes and “fees,” limited only by the imagination of revenue-starved governors, mayors and legislators. Continue Reading...

September 17, 2007

Lewis on moral tyranny

Here’s a justly famous quote from C. S. Lewis on why the danger posed by a nanny government can be much more oppressive than that posed by the consolidation of economic power: Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. Continue Reading...

September 19, 2006

Prohibition, Blue Laws, and the Primum Usus Legis

A paper recently published at the National Bureau of Economic Research calls into question some conventional economic wisdom about the effects of certain kinds of legislation. In “The Church vs the Mall: What Happens When Religion Faces Increased Secular Competition?”, Continue Reading...