The government is hungry for money. And it is looking for innovative ways to get it. However, they don't want to take it from you directly. You see that's political suicide. So when we hear about the great 300 billion middle class tax cut that the Obama administration is so graciously planning on granting, we should realize that most of it will be recovered by indirect taxes. For instance:

Indirectly it could be considered a cheeseburger tax, but one of the suggestions offered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act is to levy a tax on livestock.

The plan? $175 per dairy cow, $87.50 per beef cow, and $20 per hog.

Now obviously a dairy farmer isn't going to absorb that cost. And if all dairy farmers have to pay it, then it is a cost quite easily passed on to the middle class (and poor) consumer. Consequently this regressive tax will add 7 to 8 cents to a gallon of milk. And the same goes for beef and pork products. Thus a nice little chunk of the promised 300 billion tax cut is recovered.

And the government hasn't once directly taxed you in the process and is able to maintain the fiction that you've been fairly and progressively treated by their tax policy.

Oh, and as an aside: if McDonalds can get beef of adequate quality shipped in from another country for less per pound than it costs for American beef with the added tax, what do you suppose they'll do?

[Crossposted at QandO]