The Tough Sh!t Act - Granite Grok

The Tough Sh!t Act

NH State House - Pic by SteveM

Not too long ago I was sitting in a regular meeting of a regional Republican committee, listening to (mostly older) people talk about how schools have changed over the years — since they were in school, and since their kids were in school. One guy said that when his kids wanted to play baseball or football, he had to pay for their uniforms, help pay for travel, and so on.  Someone asked him:

“What if you couldn’t afford it?”

“Then they didn’t play.  You know, that was just tough sh!t.  It’s just life.  I knew that, and they knew that.”

I then half-jokingly suggested that perhaps someone should introduce a ‘Tough Sh!t Act’ in the next legislative session, to remind everyone that just because you can’t afford something that you think would be nice, that doesn’t justify forcing other people to buy it for you.  It’s just part of life and always has been.

It’s interesting to think about how such a statute would be phrased.  I guess this is where Legislative Services would come in handy.  But it might look something like

AN ACT relative to the improper use of taxes.  

ANALYSIS

This bill prohibits the use of taxes to pay for non-essential goods and services.

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Twenty-Three

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:

Recognizing that it is a normal condition of life for people to want things they can’t afford, and that a desire does not constitute a need, no RSA may authorize the use of money raised by taxes to pay for non-essential goods and services, including but not limited to non-academic school programs, post-secondary education, recreational facilities, and elective medical procedures or prescriptions; and any RSA that makes or relies on such authorization is hereby repealed.

Effective Date.  This act shall take effect 1 minute after its passage.

I wouldn’t expect this to pass — and if it did pass, I wouldn’t expect it to survive the judiciary, which would declare that high school football is an ‘academic program’, that braces and birth control are not ‘elective’, and so on.

But wouldn’t it be fun to question the people who would show up to oppose it, and see what kinds of ‘arguments’ they would come up with?

 

 

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