Tax The Sick

As I explained earlier, the Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, signed the bed tax into law. Besides the unconstitutional censorship aspect of that bill, I am increasingly upset by the sheer gall of exploiting sick people in this way. While $5.25 per day may not sound like much, that works out to an extra $1,916.25 per year. The fact that most people in nursing homes are not very well off financially makes it all the more disgusting that they are being forced to pay almost $2,000 more per year. I guess since we have a “death tax,” it’s only expected that we should also have a “sick tax.”

In a bit of additional irony, in the same issue of the Arkansas Democrat that reports the signing of the bed tax law, Huckabee himself has an article where he criticizes the Cato Institute for giving him a poor grade in respect to taxation. I’m trying my best to be diplomatic with the Gov. I have never met him, and have heard that he is a nice guy. However, this hypocrisy and exploitation of sick elderly people is pathetic. With the national media promoting the Democrats’ stereotype of Republicans as being mean to old people, I can’t see that Huckabee is doing anything to dispel that image.

KMK