22 Comments
User's avatar
Dave Wise (Neoteric Wood Art)'s avatar

Get a skunk, D.C. always exempts themselves.

Bandit's avatar

Don't forget to get shrews, I'm sure the "women" want representation, too.

Charles Summers's avatar

They’ve been taxing pets for decades now. License tags and rabies shots, and more recently with pet insurance.

INGRID C DURDEN's avatar

Licence tags? I know about the rabies shots, which are useless as are all vaxxes. And I do not think pet insurance is obligatory. At least not where I live God forbid if they ever come up with that.

Charles Summers's avatar

Many counties and cities in the US require annual licensing for dogs and cats, enforced with increasing fines and the threat of capture and euthanasia. Same with the vaccines. Insurance is not technically mandatory, however, in my mind the insurance aspect has driven the cost of vet care up by 3 to 4 times, resulting in a defacto tax on your kitties.

Rat's avatar

The cost of vet care goes up exponentially this side of the pond, too.

Rogelio W., agent of the self's avatar

It's amazing how Murphy's Law keeps winning every single debate against the so called "common sense" that people always invoke.

In our case, by common sense, it should be that people choose to spend money on the product called "insurance" so that they save money in the long run. This is supposed to be a low time-preference attitude, very wholesome and mature and civilized.

But in reality, people end up spending more money in the short run and in the long run with the game of "insurance".

The effect is very much the opposite of what common sense describes.

I remember the "Peltzman effect", a riddle proposed to explain all this nonsense. But Murphy's law is still funnier and more scientific than most sociological, anthropological and historical theories.

Rat's avatar

Insuring against $500 emergencies is rather a high time-preference alternative to starting the use of the risk source in question a few months later.

Traditionally, it's always been assumed that insurance is meant for "catastrophic" events; but gradually, people have been moving the threshold of "catastrophic" lower and lower.

Rogelio W., agent of the self's avatar

By people you mean those featherless bipeds who munch ads and click-bait headlines all day... I think their opinion of what a catastrophe is might be affected by that diet.

Rat's avatar

good point.

this “catastrophic climate change” where one day you have to wear a scarf but the next day it feels too hot again — oh goodness!

INGRID C DURDEN's avatar

thank you for this information, I did not know that! We do not have it here, but if it comes I might need to move! It would feel like paying tax on a husband LOL

Tardigrade's avatar

I think the whole purpose of dog licenses is to enforce the rabies vaccinations.

Charles Summers's avatar

Its the fees they are after. Anything to squeeze a buck out of people. Gotta pay the dog catcher.

Opmerker's avatar

Our menagerie is very worried!

Domenic C. Scarcella's avatar

2.14 on the calculator? That must have a secret meaning!

Rat's avatar

It’s the number of government shutdowns that could potentially had been pulled off this year (but alas, won’t): https://ratsays.substack.com/p/its-over

Domenic C. Scarcella's avatar

I just want one government shutdown. A real one, though.

Rat's avatar

We have a related piece for this, too: https://ratsays.substack.com/p/independence :)

Dave Wise (Neoteric Wood Art)'s avatar

I wondered that too, St. Valentines Day?

INGRID C DURDEN's avatar

I do not know about today, but years ago, there was a tax on pets in Belgium. There was also a licence plate (taxed of course) on bicycles. There is a tax on clean water use and a tax on dirty water drain. Do not let the US government read this. They might come to an idea.

Jimmy's avatar

Unpack your pack, pack rats, they’re coming for you!