> New Hampshire replaces this tax by selling hard alcohol

You want the government to pay for children's books out of the pockets of alcoholics? I know that's an uncharitable reading of what you said, but that's what it boils down to. If people drink less alcohol, generally considered a good thing for society (I say this as someone with a well-stocked liquor cabinet), then the kids get fewer textbooks.

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margalabargala 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Budgets are fortunately generally not this inflexible.

A drop in alcohol sales would cause the budget to be reworked. If they decide to cut the education budget in response, that's fine, but they would not simply throw up their hands and say "oh well, no books for students".

If you worked two jobs, and deposited one paycheck into a bank account that you labeled "food" and the second into a different bank account labeled "rent, savings, and everything else", and you lost the job that got deposited into the "food" account, would you starve?

	▲	triceratops 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The point is there are perverse incentives. Societies really want lower alcohol consumption. But at the same time politicians know if it goes down they'll have to come up with the money via a different, maybe less popular tax.

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prasadjoglekar 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Incidentally, alcohol in NH is considerably cheaper than in neighboring VT, MA and certainly NY.

Those states have sales taxes, income taxes and property taxes.

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stormbeard 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So what? People drinking less alcohol is something we should strive for, but I don't see the problem with taxing it and using the income to fund schools. Yes, if people drink less alcohol that will be less money for schools, but that does not automatically mean it will be less money than they receive today.

	▲	triceratops 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If people drink less alcohol politicians will have to raise tax revenue some other way, or cut school funding. Either one may cost them re-election. So maybe they won't try so hard to reduce alcohol consumption. In the extreme, sociopathic case, they could tank funding for addiction programs, to take one hypothetical. The point is: misaligned incentives.