Tax you, Tax me, Tax it Together, Tax-a-ly

(title sung to the tune of the Lionel Ritchie classic)

I know it's only Monday, but I already have a nomination for the 'Genius of the Week' award: City Councilman Joe Newman of Chesapeake, Virginia. What did this guy and his merry team of clowns do to deserve this accolade, you ask?

"The Chesapeake City Council is asking Virginia legislators to impose an additional 10 percent state tax on beer and wine."

Why would such an increase even be a option?

"Councilman Joe Newman says most people would be willing to pay more for discretionary purchases such as beer and wine in order to have adequate roads and schools and to fund public-safety proposals. He says the surcharge would bring in 125 (M) million dollars statewide."

I'm going to go through this one by one. First off, I think that the use of the words 'most people' is a bit of stretch. I would argue that given a choice, most people would be willing to pay no taxes whatsoever. I know this option will never happen, but one can dream. Second, what is this about the purchasing of beer and wine as 'discretionary' spending. I always thought this classification was relegated to things like a Rolex watch or that Picasso you've been eyeing for a while. Of course, I also think that things like beer and wine should be classified as foodstuffs. They are consumed as often, if not more than Doritos. Sometimes even in conjunction with each other, and I suspect beer and wine have higher nutritional values than a pack of Twinkies. And lastly, kudos to Old Man Newman for bringing the schools (read - 'the children') in for 'moral' justification. Who could possibly argue against that? You wouldn't be so selfish as to deny the kids a new swing set would you?

And now the ringer:

"The surcharge would be on top of any other sales taxes. Customers already pay a five percent sales tax on beer and wine bought in retail stores."

This is brilliant. How do these people get elected? To bring this into perspective, for one a case of wine at roughly $8.00 per bottle, this new tax would cost the average dude another fifteen bucks! I bet the people in Norfolk (3.5 miles away),Portsmouth (4.7 miles away), or even as far as Virginia Beach (19.2 miles away) are praying like a bastard that the Chesapeake City Council gets this through. Even if you had to drive to Va. Beach in your H2 and it was uphill both ways, you would still be saving money.