1. Legalizing Marijuana: No true list of deficit reduction ideas would be complete without it. I didn’t even waste time by putting a preamble paragraph before getting right down to the business of getting high. It’s impossible to know for sure how much taxable revenue the US is missing out on by moving such a lucrative industry underground but some estimates make it out to be as high as 250 billion dollars a year. That’s a quarter trillion dollars the US would make annually in pure revenue. Which doesn’t even factor in the enormous SAVINGS of making marijuana legal to US law enforcement. Republicans always say the government has a spending problem–making it sound like the entire US government is as much an addict as Cheech and Chong–and if that’s true I just found a way to get the gov. the help it needs: stop surveilling, investigating, arresting, detaining, prosecuting, and imprisoning marijuana sellers/users and you’ve just saved billions in DEA, police, courtroom, and prison costs.
2. Legalizing Online Betting: To his credit (and as much as I don’t really care for him otherwise) Harry Reid tried valiantly to get this passed last year–although he was just for online poker when I’m talking about all online betting–but of course Republicans stonewalled it. Every year, the US misses out on a half trillion dollars in taxable revenue by having a ban on online betting. Having a ban doesn’t mean people don’t do it, it just means they register their bets with some horse shit Caribbean location like the Isle of Man instead of in the US which could tax it. So people are going to gamble and possibly lose their house anyway, why not have it benefit the USA instead of some loan shark in the Caribbean? He’s probably American anyway but just doesn’t have to pay taxes on all the money he collects or deal with any regulations.
3. Legalize Prostitution: “Now hold on a minute here…” I can practically hear some people say on the other end of the monitor (I’m that good). “We were with you until this one.” A lot of the people that might applaud when I suggest legalizing marijuana or online betting have serious reservations about legalizing prostitution. [Then there’s the people that hate the idea of legalizing any of the three but those people probably want abortion, pornography, and alcohol made illegal so we can’t pay attention to them, they’ll always be on the wrong side of history.]
Still, the same fundamental principles apply to prostitution that apply to gambling or marijuana use: its billions of dollars every year the US government can’t tax when its underground, it costs money to prosecute the underground, and while its underground there’s no regulations. Unlike gambling or marijuana use, people don’t consider prostitution a victimless crime because of the rampant use of sex slaves or lucrative sex trafficking trade that has overlap with it. That exists BECAUSE prostitution is illegal. Every time we push an industry underground, criminals go there and take advantage because good people won’t break the law. It’s the same reason we made abortion legal and the same reason illegal immigrants have to hitch a ride with a drug cartel instead of the Red Cross. Making prostitution legal will clean it up and add regulations to end horrendous practices like sex slaves.
The people that have the biggest problem with legalizing prostitution are women–who aren’t really keen on making it easier for their husbands to cheat on them–but let’s be honest, whether something is legal or not probably doesn’t discourage the kind of guy that would use a prostitute. And if it’s going on any way, blow jobs should be taxed just like any other financial transaction where a wife might have just as much fun (hair appointments, manicures, divorce, etc.).
4. Legalize Lotteries: What’s that? Almost every state in the country already has a lottery? Please tell that to Alabama, which doesn’t have one because of religious zealot politicians (and out of state gaming interests that fund them) and sees hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable revenue go over the state line to Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee every year. When a state is surrounded by other states that sell lottery tickets, the state that doesn’t sell them is really just losing money more than enforcing a moral code.
5. Create a millionaire and billionaire tax bracket: I just couldn’t resist adding a tax increase to this list although anyone should be pretty proud that I waited until the last one to do it. The top tax income bracket is 250,000 a year, which means that you’re paying the top rate whether you make 250,000 a year or 2 billion a year. That’s not right. So I’m on the page of liberal progressives that say creating more tax brackets at the top only makes sense.
Add your revenue ideas down below…
Absolutely…marijuana laws lock up thousands of innocent people in this country
I love these ideas, of course, I’m also a guy
I think you are right on the money. People are going to do these things. I enjoy eating. I get taxed. Why shouldn’t other pleasantries be taxed. Good idea.