Coming Soon: The Computer Tax?

Even the most leftward supporters of public broadcasting in the U.S. have never dared propose that we adopt England's longtime method of funding the British Broadcasting Corporation -- an annual tax on every television set in the country.

(Britain also used to tax each radio set, but easily disguised and smuggled transistor radios made this too difficult to enforce and too absurd to continue.)

Now, as part of this week's BBC reform ideas, some British policymakers have noted that most citizens will soon be watching TV via the Internet on their computers.

Some of these policymakers have begun proposing to add to, or even to replace, the BBC tax on televisions in England with a tax on personal computers, PCs, which are used for much more than watching Britcoms or listening to BBC Internet audio.

If the Democratic Party ever returns to power in the U.S., greedy as always for ever-higher tax revenues, it's easy to imagine such a British PC tax enacted here.

During the Clinton regime, Al Gore boosted the telephone tax -- and then imposed a rule forbidding telephone companies from explaining on their bills that this added cost was a tax.

These grasping leftists would, of course, make such PC taxes "progressive."

The faster your Internet connection and CPU (and probably even the more inches in your monitor screen, because size matters), the higher your tax. And favored groups aligned with the Democratic Party would be given tax exemptions.

This would offset the advantage, and incentive, for many individuals and companies to invest in improved technologies. The so-called "progressives" will, as always, be a brake on human progress.