Tax That Fellow Behind the Wii

Jesse Walker | March 31, 2009

Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering a sin tax on violent video games. Similar ideas have been floated recently in Texas, Wisconsin, Louisiana, and New Mexico, among other places; Texas ended up adopting a subtler system, in which the legislature created a video game subsidy and steered the money toward efforts that meet the state's "general standards of decency." I hope that means some programmer in Austin is making a game that lets you smoke some weed with Willie Nelson, hook up with Anna Nicole Smith, and then head down to the Alamo for a bloody standoff with Santa Anna.