Taxing your good taste, once again.

[June 19th, 2002] Frankly, the Nose doesn't understand why those boys and girls in Salem are in such a pickle. Everyone knows there simply isn't the support to make up the $860 million hole in the state budget by just cutting spending. So what's the problem? Taxes have long been used not only as a mechanism to balance a budget, but also as a tool to modify social behavior. In other words: Tax those activities (such as smoking) you don't like.

Here, then, is the Nose's budget-balancing plan.

A $5 sales tax on the sale of all Buddhist prayer flags purchased in Southeast Portland (actual Buddhists exempt).

A $100 annual permit required for people with a waistline exceeding their inseam who want to wear Spandex in public.

A $1,000 fee charged to Oregonian Publisher Fred Stickel for every indecipherable metaphor printed under Chuck Culpepper's byline.

A $666 fine every time some elected official or candidate uses any of the following phrases:
"Since Tom McCall was governor"
"We are at a crossroads"
"Adequate and stable funding for education"
"Win-win"
"Public/private partnership."

A $299 tax on any Oregon resident with a perma-tan.

A $10,000 tax on Andy Wiederhorn's good fortune--because of Jeff Grayson's stroke.

A $1,000 fine to any PGE executive who maintains that the Portland utility did not know what it was doing when it was helping Enron manipulate the California energy crisis.

A $68 tax on anarchists who shop at Whole Foods.

A $99 "irony excise fee" imposed on people who engage in unhip activities (bowling, knitting, wearing three-quarter-sleeve Journey T-shirts) just to be "funny."

A $15 fine for any man caught wearing socks with sandals (a $25 surcharge if he is smoking a pipe).

A 50-cent tax on every commercial that runs prior to a movie at Regal Theaters.

A $33 tax on anyone in the metro area who has voted for mass transit but never seen the inside of a Tri-Met bus.

A $10 tax on any man over 40 wearing a soul patch (a $5 surcharge if he is with a similarly aged woman with an exposed midriff).

A $44 tax on bicyclists using cell phones.

A $100 licensing fee on any restaurant or street cart selling massive, tasteless burritos.

A $10 fine for anyone over the age of 7 who feeds pigeons (exemption for insanity).

A $15 penalty for anyone who uses the expression "It's all good."

A $1-per-can surcharge imposed on anyone attending a $30,000-a-year college who purchases a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon as a way of connecting with the working class.

A $1 Mojito tax on all overhyped drinks (you know what they are).

By the Nose's own reckoning and using the most complex of econometric formulae, these taxes should raise slightly more than the $860 million hole the Legislature seeks to fill.

No need to say thanks. The Nose is just happy to help.

^HEY, ALL YOU SHOOTERS!

The Nose wants your photography. He's planning to run a picture each week that captures the essence of this great city (whatever the hell that means). Send your prints (color or black-and-white, no smaller than 5-by-7 inches--no slides, no email attachments) to The Nose, c/o this paper. Write your name, address, phone number and email tag on the back. Your photo will NOT be returned, but if the Nose chooses your photo, immortality and adulation will certainly follow.