I didn’t think it was possible, but print news just got deader.
From Rasmussen Reports:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering several ways to help the struggling newspaper industry, but Americans strongly reject several proposed taxes to keep privately-owned newspapers going.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 84% oppose a three percent (3%) tax on monthly cell phone bills to help newspapers and traditional journalism.
Similarly, 76% oppose a proposed five percent tax on the purchase of consumer electronic items such as computers, iPads and Kindles to help support newspapers and traditional journalism. Seventy-four percent (74%) oppose the proposal to tax web sites like the Drudge Report to help the newspapers they draw their headlines from.
Each of these ideas was suggested for consideration in a recent FTC report.
People who say the taxpayers should bail out the newspaper industry are smoking some serious doobage.
No amount of government funding will stop modern Americans from getting their news from cable T.V. and the Internet rather than from their counterparts in print.
History has taught us that it’s futile to fight technological advancement. We didn’t raise taxes in the early 1900′s to try to save the horse and carriage industry. Nor did we raise them in the early 40′s to try to save the radio industry. And in the mid-80′s we didn’t force taxpayers to bail out the turntable industry.
Similarly, today we shouldn’t raise taxes on Americans to try to save a newspaper industry that’s going to die soon anyway.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Tax Preparation Jacksonville // Jun 10, 2010 at 6:37 am
That was a perfect line. Taxes shouldn’t really be raised for something that is believed to die soon but we should also weigh the facts that newspaper industry will not just die out that way. Let us just wait until we find out.
2 Peter // Jun 15, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Tax Preparation,
Thanks for visiting and thanks for the compliment.
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