Is taxing tanning salons racist?
I was reading a post at the CNN Political Ticker about an NAACP resolution to condemn the “racism” of the Tea Party movement. The post quoted Mark Williams, a spokesman for the Tea Party Express, who made a really good point:
“It’s the Obama administration that rolled back civil rights to a pre-civil rights era with ‘Obamacare’ in which they removed the concept of individual rights…it’s the Obama administration that put a tax on white people with a tanning salon tax.”
I never thought of that before, but it makes sense.
Suppose that there was a product that was used almost exclusively by black or Hispanic people. Then suppose that the government decided to tax it. Wouldn’t the NAACP and lots of other people and organizations call this racist?
Tanning salons are used predominantly by white people, and the Democrats’ version of health reform puts a tax on them. Why is no one calling this racist?
Is it just me, or is there a double standard here?