A New $10 Tax on Foreign Tourists

How do you get more people to vacation in the United States?

Charge 'em a new fee!

The president has signed into law another one of his Progressive brain trusts' gems: The reason tourism has dropped off over the past decade (a statistic that might need some investigation to see how the numbers have been twisted) is because we don't have a Federal Advertising Program.

You know, like the one they have in France.

So each foreign guest will be charged $10 so that we can have a new bureaucracy, and just so no one will feel left out, the law will require "matching contributions" from the private sector, as yet unspecified in how this will work. Given the way the Obama administration handles the private sector, expect the program to go into mandatory gear soon.

While I seriously doubt an extra $10 will keep too many would-be tourists from visiting America, I don't think it's a good idea. If the new "corporation" comes up with commercials as brilliant as the current campaign for the census, tourism will probably nose dive. Bureaucrats are tone deaf to true salesmanship. But maybe they are right; perhaps there are people in the world who have not heard of the United States of America.

The bigger question is whether there is any aspect of American life too great or too small to be left unexamined and unmolested by our Progressive leaders.

The question for the reasoning American citizen is this: Is this new law going to lead to greater freedom and less government regulation?

A second question: Do we really want the federal camel's nose under the tourism tent?

Finally, what do you think the Founding Fathers would have thought of this?