As if Californians aren't being taxed enough --- with the highest state income tax rate in the nation along with lofty sales and gasoline taxes --- Sacramento wants to charge a fee for text messaging on mobile phones, notes Grumpy Editor.
Funds from that would go to subsidize wireless services for lower income residents.
The proposal, frowned on by wireless industry and business groups, is slated for a vote next month by the State Public Utilities Commission.
Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council business group calls it "a dumb idea," adding, “This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.”
Wunderman says he is unaware of any local or national program that taxes texting.
An editorial on the subject in the Wall Street Journal signs off with: "On the bright side, California's tax on texting should give millennials a lesson in rapacious progressive government."
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