Why not raise taxes?

I think that there's no reason that the government can't raise a whole bunch of money by raising taxes. The trick is to know what to raise taxes on. Here's my list of proposals for things that I would raise taxes on and feel no qualms of regret whatsoever for doing so.

1. Cigarettes/Tobacco products. Slap another $1/pack onto these things. They're a luxury item, i.e. nobody NEEDS cigarettes, so this tax only affects those who choose to include themselves. They're bad for you, so not being able to afford them anymore would actually improve someone's health. Why not? It's more controversial, but I'd entertain arguments about a similar tax on alcohol...

2. Gasoline. My dad made a good point when I brought this up, which was that a raise in gas prices affects everyone, because all of the products that you buy are moved around in planes, trains, and automobiles (and boats!) which use petroleum based fuel, so the increase will eventually get tacked onto the consumer products at the end of the line.
That said, I still say raise taxes on gas. The proof that gas is still "affordable" is that people keep buying gas guzzling SUV's. It's simple economics, really. It needs to get to the point where people are rioting in the streets and actually taking public transportation or buying fuel efficient vehicles for change to happen... and change needs to happen. Maybe pressure would come from big businesses, too, if it's hurting their bottom line. What if we used the money raised by these taxes to fund alternative energy research? Or we could wait until we're out of oil... which leads me to...

3. Vehicles. The Licensing Fees for vehicles could be restructured to reward fuel efficient vehicles. We could limit this to passenger vehicles to alleviate the added cost to consumer products (we'd have to work carefully on the definition of a "passenger vehicle" to avoid "company car" loopholes...). This money could go toward alternative fuel research, too... or to public transportation. I don't mind if Amtrak doesn't pay for itself, if taxes on fuel and gas-guzzling vehicles pays for it instead.

4. Jewelry. Again, a luxury item. The only place where I start to feel a little bit bad for people is when I think of a poor guy saving up to buy an engagement ring for his fiancee... (although the whole notion of a diamond engagement ring was artificially invented by the diamond market headed by deBeers, and the price of diamonds is artificially controlled by deBeers, which has a monopoly in the trade that is illegal under US law, which is why no executives of the company ever travel to the US... they could be arrested). Other than that questionable "necessary" use for diamonds, jewelry is a non-necessity. So how about imposing an additional 2% tax on individual jewelry items which cost more than $1,000? We could even use this money for foreign aid, in particular for countries devastated by civil war and oppressive tyranny fueled and financed by the diamond trade. We could even give a tax break on non-conflict gems... how's that for incentive?

5. Restructure payroll taxes. Right now, you pay payroll taxes into the Social Security fund on the first $88,000 you make in a year. Anything above that is payroll tax free (well, kind of. There's no upper limit on Medicare tax). So, what if we get rid of the upper limit and instead institute a lower limit? What if the FIRST $12,000 you make was payroll tax free, and there was no upper limit? The only people who would end up paying more under this system would be those who make more than $100,000/year. Doesn't it make more sense to give a tax break to people who make less than $100,000/year than to those who make more? And doesn't it stand to reason that if it's a "burden" for people to pay taxes on income over $100,000, it's an unbearable burden for people who make less than $15,000? I mean, really, they can hardly afford to pay any taxes at all. It just makes sense.

6. No new taxes! The government loses billions of dollars each year in uncollected taxes. What if we invested 10% of that lost money in giving the IRS more resources to collect from tax cheats (many of which are large corporations or wealthy individuals who misuse loop-holes and/or create complicated paper-trails to hide taxable income and assetts) and we get 50%, or 25%, or even 15% of it back... isn't that worth the investment? If we just work harder on collecting the "old" taxes, we won't need new taxes! I mean, we could totally forget my first five suggestions and get almost the same amount of income by focusing on the taxes already owed.

So, what do you think? Who could disagree with these modest proposals? To start with, the tobacco industry, oil industry, auto-makers, ummm... I guess people into jewelry and the fugitive executives who run deBeers, people who make over $100,000/year, and any individuals or corporations who are currently saving money by not paying the taxes they actually owe. That would probably turn out to be a small number of people with a whole lot of money and political clout. No wonder nobody's willing to take them on.

-"It's not the money... it's all the stuff..."