Tax-free double latte, please

When 2003 is over, and we look back on all the weird things people tried to do, shaking our heads in hindsight, I know there will be a special place at the top of the list for the city of Seattle.\nHere's what happened. \nThe Sept. 15 edition of USA Today revealed that last week the citizens of Seattle were asked to consider Initiative 77, a proposed 10-cent tax on "any beverage prepared for immediate consumption containing half an ounce or more of espresso," essentially cappuccinos and lattes.\nYou may be asking yourself where this extra revenue would go. And if you guessed drug rehabilitation centers, you'd be terribly ironic. The goal of Initiative 77 was to put those levied dimes into preschool and day care programs in Seattle.\nProponents said anyone willing to pay $3 to $4 for a coffee should be willing to pay an extra dime for the good cause of helping kids. \nBut in the city of Seattle, it's just not that simple. As with any controversial issue, the voters had to analyze it closely before picking their positions based solely on the media blitz to create the worst pun.\nA few nominees they considered: the headline "Proposed espresso tax steams Seattle" from The Associated Press, or perhaps a Boston Globe editorial: "Grounds for taxation?"\nOnly one can win the title, and the clear winner had to be JOLT (Joined in Opposition to the Latte Tax), a campaign funded by businesses, including the Seattle-based company, Starbucks. JOLT's strategy seemed to be "out-crazy our opponents." They staged a Boston Tea Party-style rally, throwing imitation sacks of coffee in a lake. \nIt worked -- 68 percent of the voters rejected the tax ("Latte tax creamed," the Seattle Times said).\nWhen it comes to taxing coffee, I'm prone to side with David Brunori, a contributing editor at State Tax Notes magazine. Mr. Brunori seems to be the most passionate man in America on the topic of taxation, and gives off the impression that if you don't side with him, he might chew off your arm. \n"That thing is ludicrous. No clear-thinking people would tax anything this way," he told USA Today, while frothing at the mouth. (Sorry).\nYes, taxing coffee is silly. But, in broader terms, it doesn't change the fact Seattle needed that money.\nA student with a regular checking account can't get away with spending money he doesn't have, so ideally the government shouldn't either. It needs our money so it can satisfy us, and when it doesn't have enough money, we get silly proposals like a tax on coffee, or we don't get our services -- or we get a deficit.\nThat makes this whole business of regular citizens voting on tax policy just a bad idea, folks. There's a simple answer why regular people shouldn't be asked to vote on tax measures: we hate taxes.\nWe'd rather have our arms chewed off by rabid tax policy wonks than pay taxes. That's why the founding fathers created politicians.\nPoliticians are the people (and I use the term "people" loosely) we allow to do all the dirty work for us. It's their job to cut spending or raise taxes. We may hate it, but at the end of the day, it's easier than doing it to ourselves. \nWe the students pay a certain cost to attend this school. I hate it, you hate it, but we pay it, and we're compensated. Imagine if tuition wasn't a set price, and we were allowed to vote on it. \nI'm sure we'd all pay for that in the long run, but not with our money.