Vice President Biden wants to levy tax on makers of violent media

Story is a couple weeks old, but after running a search I didn't see the story posted here.

We’ve heard a lot of about lawmakers wanting to levy a tax on violent video games and such, but today’s news is a bit different. Vice President Biden (yes, the second most powerful person in the US) wants to levy a tax on media companies who make and distribute violent content, and the money from those taxes as proceeds for victims of violent crimes.

Source

Seems to me a way for Biden to start swooning conservative voters early, perhaps with a 2016 bid in mind. Otherwise can't make sense of this random garbage of a tax proposal. Most disturbing to me is that the Vice President (or any person of high political office) would consult with 20 religious representatives behind closed doors to discuss a future tax proposal, or any type of legislation for that matter. He could of saved alot of trouble and traveling expense, and just brought in a Ouija board and crystal ball.

Also as a purveyor of various horror flicks and some bloody video games, I still resent the notion that this translates into real life. Far too many people are totally proven to be non-effected by violence in media to punish everyone because some impressionable person with violence already in their hearts goes berserk. I don't think punishing and taxing several media industries is going to effect violence in our country one bit. This move is a way to appease religious zealots who push for censorship of everything. Can't have the theocracy many of these nutcases would enact if they had it their way, but at least they have a direct line to the VIce President of the United States.

Yeah, like government would allow any taxes to go to a good cause...

But, there might be something behind the violent video game effecting people.

I played god of war straight through, and for two days I was trying to cut people in half with imaginary chaos swords...

Tax, Tax, Tax. Thats all they can do! They won't be happy til they have every penny!

Originally posted by terriblyvexed
Yeah, like government would allow any taxes to go to a good cause...

But, there might be something behind the violent video game effecting people.

I played god of war straight through, and for two days I was trying to cut people in half with imaginary chaos swords...

Seriously, why can't someone go to Biden and quote you. Pure genius.

Lets tax superhero movies too. They cause a lot of collateral damage in those movies.

I don't see a problem with this and i'll tell you why.

www.youtube.com...

Because of hypocrites like this who make their living acting out violence on screen and then demand that we lose our rights to protect ourselves. Let them lose money. I hope the violent media gets taxed hard enough that they lose profits.

I came from the Natural Born Killers, Reservoir Dogs, True Romance generation and yes I use to agree that violence on screen/games didn't affect me or my friends. But back then, our parents spanked us for getting unruly. There were consequences to our actions and that was okay, that was the right way to parent. We were taught that cowboys and indians was a fun game to pass the time, not anymore.

Children aren't allowed to be punished anymore. Which has led to less and less teens/children having no understanding of consequences until it's already too late. No one feels anything for anyone anymore. They aren't taught to. The Cosby Show and Full House were replaced with Hannibal and Dexter.


I thought my whole life that I would be against violence of the film and game industry being blamed for the actions of today. But these kids are NOT the same as we were. Because no value is placed on family life anymore, no value is placed on human life at all. Everyone looks right through everyione else, the only thing anyone sees is dollar signs. And we all know that the more violent the movie, show, or game the more money it is going to bring in. It's all about the glitz and glamour of the kill which is why we end up with Newtowns.

Tax the crap out of them.



I honestly don't know how to embed a video so if someone can tell me, i'd appreciate it.

Originally posted by brandiwine14

Children aren't allowed to be punished anymore. Which has led to less and less teens/children having no understanding of consequences until it's already too late. No one feels anything for anyone anymore. They aren't taught to.

I don't buy that for a minute. Teens know full well what they do and if it is right or wrong or not. They don't act out because of lack of knowledge, they act out because they think they can get away with it - this has always been the case for ages now.

~~~~~~~~~~

This so called Vice President proves once again how dumb he is. Music, Video Games, Movies, TV Shows etc can all have violent portrayals. This guy wants to tax several multi-billion dollar a year American industries - Gee.. i guess he doesn't know those are the same people who might re-elect him.. guess he don't care about his job very much. The gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe would get elected faster than this guy.

I guess he'd have to tax The News too as well as the White House and all US Armed forces.

Originally posted by NaturalDizaster
levy a tax on media companies who make and distribute violent content

Books are "media" arent they?
Lets start with the Old Testament. Lots of "violent content" in there that can be taxed.

But of course... that would never actually happen.

How can you tax freedom of expression?
Heck is he going to tax his drones?
I hope he doesn't try and get back taxes from Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Oh well thats every news network in the country going out of business then. Though to be fair with the amount of lawyers and accountants the propaganda ministries have working for them they probably pay next to no tax anyway.

reply to post by NaturalDizaster


So that means the price of a movie will go up about $10.00.
The price of video games will go up about $20.00
The price of Rap Music will go up about $10.00
The price of a Dean Koontz Best Seller will go up about $10.00
The price of Net Flix will go up about $30.00

AND, .. . the price of your Daily News Paper will go up about $20.00 a Week.

Dirty Sons-a-Brickets. . .. . "Let's Bleed 'em Dry. They don't mind. They aren't complaining."

reply to post by brandiwine14


That was a really good video, which highlights both the hypocrisy of these actors and shows how stupid it is to pay attention to someone who thinks they have a strong politcal voice, simply because they recited lines and actions in front of a camera. Most of these people are as trite and shallow in their morals as the characters they portray on camera, and have no qualification or business trying to use their star power to push a political agenda.

That being said, I don't see a tax effecting them in any way whatsoever. Every business or corporation I've ever seen operate always passes new expenses and taxes on directly to the consumer and/or the bottom tier of employees. So the only people that will be adversley effected by this is Joe citizen and probably sweeping wage cuts for production assistants, makeup/costume people etc. The big directors, screenwriters and actors would still reap their millions, you would just see the price of movie tickets , dvd's and games go up, and if people compalined Hollywood or EA would just shrug its shoulders and blame it on the tax.

Originally posted by Magister
Tax, Tax, Tax. Thats all they can do! They won't be happy til they have every penny!

Don't they already have every penny?
just a thought considering the dollar isn't real money.

They should start by taxing the news!

They have done many studies that show them that after a major news broadcast, that they get many followers. People who repeat the acts or are susceptible to the suggestion. The police are always on the lookout....like Sandy hook. They where damn worried that someone was going to copy cat!

Maybe if they taxed the news for every horror story they air, then we can get back to what really matters. Like peace and the end of slavery worldwide.

If the news can convince people to copy-cat....then maybe the news can spread peace and caring! Monkey see monkey do sort of thing! We can't even turn on the news without being bombarded with the next "great" murder/rape/killing overseas/destruction!

It's almost like the news in search of ratings, is trying to create the chaos!

How about instead of taxing them, we make it mandatory that anything they depict in their movies, they have to undergo personally first, since they're fine with giving gawdknowswho the benefit of their vivid imaginations;

So, you want to portray a rape scene? First you have to hire someone to rape you. And not just for show, either. Kinda like you can't be waterboarded in a nice way.

You want something that shows people getting knifed? Ditto. Dozens of bullets entering a body, head etc while blood spatters everywhere? Go for it. I'm sure all the out of work stunt men in Hollywood would be happy to oblige. Hell, we could just film that and be good to go, y'know? Nuthin' like REAL BLOOD AND GUTS to sell movies to all the psychos. They have money too, in a consumer culture we should make sure they're not left out of a way to spend their money.

I came to this conclusion years ago after watching a horrific scene where a woman was raped and murdered (I paid a movie ticket price for this???) and a while later, the same thing was done to someone in real life. You never know what whacko out there is going to get some idea from something you put out there in the grand consciousness.

Or, you could just write humor. Granted that takes actual, y'know SKILL! but at least the personal preview will be a painless one.

reply to post by NaturalDizaster


What a great idea, as long as politicians are also heavily fined for creating REAL violent games by sending REAL American children into REAL violent areas of the world.

You know, every time a politician votes to raise the people's taxes, his salary should be cut.

That would solve all problems.

When the politician votes to reduce taxes, we raise his salary back up again.

The rational for this is simple. If the government can be run more efficiently, on less revenues, then we should reward those who are governing with income increases and bonuses like the corporations do. And if the government is being run so badly, that they have to take more and more from the people to prop it up, then we need to send a message to top management that we're not going to reward poor performance.

reply to post by NaturalDizaster


First of all Biden is not a conservative, he is a member of the Democrat party in case you didn't know, and last I checked many liberals and actors in the Hollywood crowd are very outspoken about being against violence despite making violent movies.

Also, in case you didn't know there are PLENTY of Democrats and progressives who are religious.

This tax, if it passes, would probably include movies, so this is another attempt by "the progressive movement" to control people's lives.

I believe when taxing becomes the preferred method of forced control of the marketplace instead of the reasonable means to fund min. levels of required Government service, however society defines that? We have financial tyranny. This isn't logical, it's tyrannical by means of the pen and taxman. Enough with the endless, nonstop TAXES!

They waste everything they get like it's an endless party of drunken sailors. No more for them. They need put into the penalty box with what they DO have, as it is!

While I despise this kind of penalizing taxation, the way I see it, this is just what happens when people expect government to do something government has no business doing.

Government's place in the context of crime is punishing criminals (people they can actually prove did something wrong). They have no business trying to prevent crime by taxing someone who makes a violent movie.

Besides which, when you give them a blank check to "prevent crime" they tend to go hog wild.