I'm not arguing against taxation; I'm arguing against unnecessary and
punitive taxation.
Government needs taxes and fees in order to fund "necessary" spending.
Collecting taxes on capital gains, does not "arguably" discourage investment; it "for certain", discourage investment.
Collecting taxes on smoking might discourage "some" from smoking, but, has there really been a reduction in the total number of people smoking? Raising taxes on smokers, just makes their habit a lot more expensive. If they really want to do something about smoking, then government should forbid smoking via laws, but, it's still legal to do so, so, why should it be punished? Driving causes many thousands of lives to be lost on a yearly basis, and it also causes many thousands (perhaps millions) of injuries on a yearly basis, thereby making driving a very expensive and deadly proposition. So, why not ban driving, or discourage it by raising the price of gas to "punishment" type levels, like they did with smoking?
CO2 is a byproduct of driving and other energy uses. Raising taxes on oil or CO2 producing fuels, creates a burden for personal and business use, which translates to a big burden to the economy, which means that, if people and businesses have to spend more on fuel, there will be less personal and business funds to spend elsewhere in the economy, which will and has, caused many businesses to close shop and millions of people to lose jobs.
The problem with democrats/liberals is that, they don't understand repercussions. In physics, we understand that, to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In economics, every action creates repercussions that reverberate throughout the economy. Punishment economics not only hurts people and businesses with higher prices, but it also sends many of those businesses to foreign lands, which means millions of jobs lost. We are witnessing those repercussions on a daily basis, and we are digging an even deeper hole with higher taxation (or punishment taxation) and with the massive number of regulations, many of which are also intended as punitive actions against the sectors which democrats deem "out of line".
