Illinois (AP-MyFoxChicago) – A plan to tax Illinois strip clubs has won a tentative OK from a state Senate committee. They’re going to now tax strip clubs… Well kiss another industry good-bye Illinois!
The legislation would impose an admission tax of $5 per person at strip clubs that serve alcohol or let customers bring their own. The tax is imposed on customers whether they buy drinks there or bring their own? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The tax money would go to sexual assault prevention programs. AH! There it is, the “feel -good” measure that legitimizes the new tax. Funny, I don’t see what one has to do with the other.
The Public Health Committee approved it 8-0 Tuesday. But several lawmakers said they would need more information before they’d be willing to support it on the Senate floor. Sen. Toi Hutchinson who has NOTHING to do with the Public Health Committee, but sits on the REVENUE committee says her proposal would address some of the violence toward women that she attributes to alcohol and nude dancing. Violence against women is attributed to alcohol and nude dancing? Hmmm…. learn something new every day. And to think, all this time I thought it was because they didn’t know when to shut up. Go figure!
Is that their way of saying that they’re only intending to enforce this new tax in clubs that feature “female” entertainers? They’ll leave the ones that feature male entertainers alone, right? I like how they lump the violence against women and sexual assault prevention into one big pot. Gotta love the convoluted thought process.
The Democrat from Olympia Fields says Texas has a similar tax and Missouri bans all alcohol sales at strip clubs.
Illinois club owners say the tax would put many of them out of business. Some strip joints, I can see tanking over such a thing. If you raise the cost to the consumer, you get less demand. Less demand means the supply will increase and result in a surplus. If you can’t reduce the price of your goods or services in order to avoid the surplus, you go out of business. Microeconomics 101 folks…
Ridiculous… I understand that all they are really doing is taxing a ”vice,” that’s all this really is. As my good friend Jnine said, they’ve always done it, they always will. If they’re going to add a tax to something, it’s pretty stupid to claim it’s for some greater good when it’s really not. This has nothing to do with domestic violence, violence against women, or even sexual assault. What this has to do with, is the fact that Illinois, much like California, has budget problems and won’t cut back their spending on the creature comforts they promise their voters, in order to keep their jobs.
The claim that government can do ANYTHING about those problems is foolish. I’m not trying to diminish the seriousness of them, I’m only being realistic. Think about it folks; there are ALREADY laws in place that make it illegal to rape someone and beat up your significant other. Can someone tell me how ANOTHER program is going to fix it?
Of course you can’t, because there’s nothing a program can do about it. What adding MORE programs is actually doing, is creating a bureaucracy; think about it. This is a tax being put in place to fund a program that is going to employ “specialists”, counselors, and expand the demand for more prosecutors and judges. There will be the victims who will have someone there, a counselor maybe, who will be there solely to “validate” the feelings of the victim. There will be the accused who may or may not have done anything, who is going to have to fight like mad, but not too mad (because he has to prove his innocence – how ass backwards is that) over the accusations. There is registrations on websites and court costs… If you think about it, the only ones benefiting from this is the state government and the lawyers.
It does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to fix the problem. They set up those unconstitutional road blocks and roadside safety checks all the time around holidays right? They STILL catch drunk drivers at those things, do they not? Isn’t drunk driving against the law? See what I’m saying?
So now let’s go back to the whole taxing the people who attend strip clubs. By the logic of this state’s government, the cost of this social ill should be burdened by those who attend a particular LEGAL establishment that provides LEGAL goods and services. Isn’t that the same as saying that those who seek the services of those establishments are guilty and responsible for this social ill?
That’s just wrong; where the hell does the Illinois state government get off making that kind of judgement on an individual, without the due process of law?
I just thought of another important point, America. This new tax as it stands on its own merit, in being pushed through by the bleeding hearts as a “pro-woman” bill, is anything but. If anything, this new tax bill is an ANTI-WOMAN bill. Allow me to explain.
With all of this concern for some faceless victims who have or have yet to run afoul of crimes against their persons, I feel it unfair to those who sit at the forefront of this issue. They’re forgetting those who are going to be affected the most by all of this; the STRIPPERS! By taxing those who patronize their services, they are going to see a reduction in the revenue that they generate. Hey strippers have to eat too, you know? Some are even single moms!
They have shoes to buy and those skimpy little outfits that they take off to pay for… Don’t overlook how much each club takes from them each night they work; the house mom’s charge them for stage / pole time, some have to pay the DJ for the songs, and the bouncers… it’s not cheap (I dated a few strippers back in the day). What do these girls rake in? A few bucks from the partons per song while they’re on stage and maybe a few bucks from the lapdances @ $20 – $30 a pop?
What are these girls supposed to do when the customers start dwindling? The club still has to make its money, so they’ll probably stick it to the strippers (pun intended).
With all of this talk about some greater good, and in an age of liberal-minded fairness, I have to ask you America… How is this fair to the strippers?
How is punishing them and pretending to care about victims whose perpetrators may have never been to a strip club in their lives, fair? By what means are the rights of strippers less than those who, indeed were victimized, but not by the strip clubs?
The easy thing to say would be that they should go to college. The reality is that every stripper I’ve ever met, told me that they WERE in college. Now I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that, but it did raise my awareness of something that people aren’t always ready to admit; not everyone SHOULD go to college. That’s right, I said it.
There are those great many amongst us who don’t have the capacity for it, and there’s NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.
The same goes for women as well. Not all girls will grow up to be marine biologists or lawyers. It’s a fact of life, and to drill into these poor girls heads that the only way they will ever amount to something is if they pursue some degree that they have no ability to ever complete, is wrong and gives them unrealistic expectations.
It is wrong to set someone else up to fail. If some girl who wanted to be a ballerina wound up landing on a stage wrapped around a stripper pole, I say GOOD FOR YOU SWEETHEART! Now let Uncle Gaslamp know what shift you’re working and once the kids are in bed, I’ll come up and watch.
(Jnine, I said that last part just for you! Love ya sweety!)
Source for story: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/politics/strip-club-tax-plan-approved-by-illinois-senate-panel-20120306
kelly anderson
July 30, 2012
Trash should be Taxed..if it is done right, it will run the Filth out.
the gaslamp post
July 31, 2012
Hi Kelly, thanks for posting.
Actually it won’t. All taxing does is punish the consumer. In the short term it may or may not hurt the business by discouraging patron-ship, but not likely. There are always ways around that in order to hide that tax from the consumer. One way is to add it to the price of the drinks and then charge a two or three drink minimum.
Taxing in order to make something cost prohibitive thus penalizing a business only encourages people to explore alternatives; it doesn’t “cure” an “evil”, per say…
I read a story about how in Chicago since they jacked up the taxes on cigarettes, a new smuggling trade has been born. Now people are traveling to other states where the taxes are significantly lower and purchasing them in bulk. From there they smuggle the cigarettes back to Chicago and sell them for more than they paid for them but for cheaper than one could otherwise purchase them in Chicago.
Businesses, legitimate businesses which sell this perfectly legal yet sometimes unpopular product are hurt by the loss of revenue because of the smuggling and the consumer isn’t penalized any more by the tax. This isn’t anything new, it’s been going on in NYC since they jacked the price of cigarettes up to well over $10 per pack.
Do you see what I’m getting at?
Taxing something only has a benefit to one person, the bureaucrat who imposes it.
Another thing about this tax is that they passed it with the feel-good message of using the money to put programs in place to prevent sexual assault. Not to take away from the seriousness of the topic, but doesn’t that raise the question, what does this kind of business have to do with sexual assault?
That is making the assumption that strip clubs are directly responsible for rape, is it not? That’s an awfully dangerous assumption as well as unfair to the industry; not to mention making them guilty until proven innocent.
The last time I checked, that was not how we as a society operate.
If they want to impose a tax, that is the prerogative of the bureaucrats and they do so at their own peril. Politicians who like to levy taxes usually do not hold office for very long.
Not to mention that introducing this tax by exploiting victims of sexual assault is wrong.
Right, wrong, or indifferent… Regardless of one’s opinion of an establishment, over-taxing a legitimate business doesn’t hurt them and only shifts consumers elsewhere. In economics it’s called “the law of substitution.”
If the business decides to pack up and move, which they often times do, that business which once paid its’ share of taxes now takes it’s money elsewhere. When towns and cities lose tax revenue without cutting spending, that money has to come from somewhere. That means jack up taxes on someone else…
Then what happens? People get sick of the taxes and vote with their feet, do they not? So now there are less people and businesses paying taxes so everyone else’s taxes go up. It snowballs out of control.
Two perfect examples of this happening are Detroit and the state of California.