The Mickey Tax

to promote tourism, by levying a charge on visitors

Also they should consider promoting education, by taxing textbooks.

This bill lacks vision! We should be charging the unenlightened masses who have not visited the US! Overhead will likely be higher than 3/5, but perhaps we can bring it down by outsourcing.

“I was at a sort-of DC power lunch yesterday with staffers from the Hill (the first such lunch I’ve ever gone to, and likely to be the last for a while)”

The conventional wisdom used to be that the only effective way for an academic to communicates facts to legislators was to meet with staff. But now they have Google, and we have blogs, and perhaps the personal meeting means less.

Thanks Henry- do you have info on new rules for visa waiver countries? It sounds awful.

Especially the ones owned by Disney, if that weren’t clear.

Negislation.

Negislation.

That’s really good.

if those fees went to pay the TSA goons to go do something else, i’d certainly be willing to pay it at this point. think of it like a welfare program for petty bureaucrats.

A Mickey Mouse law!

I was going to suggest a “Costanza Law” (“Opposite, Jerry! Opposite!”) But if I recall correctly, acting in opposition to his instinct actually worked out well for George. Maybe Wile E Coyote – his schemes always backfired, but the failure wasn’t designed right in.

How about the opposite of this idea? If taxing $25 makes tourism worse, how about handing each visitor $25 to help them enjoy the country. Would that increase tourism? It could be funded from our bottomless general tax fund, or by taxing the Disney lobbyists.

I would simply call it “ironic” legislation since it pretty well fits the classical definition of irony and also implies duplicity on the part of the authors.

Entry fees are a common resort for poor countries that have limited opportunities to earn foreign currency.

Or ones with an official market (and thus a black market) for foreign exchange.

Instead, it would be levied when people from visa waiver countries apply to travel (under new rules they have to submit their personal details well in advance of travel to the US).

I’m sure that New York’s retailers just love that. “Give us a shitload of personal data that we can store out of reach of data protection laws, oh, and pay us $25 too.” It’s the kind of experience that will lead to quite a few “oh, fuck that” aborted last-minute trips across the pond.

In fact, you have to wonder if London’s retailers are surreptitiously pushing this law through. There are enough administrative and psychological barriers for those considering travelling to the US — watertight travel/health insurance, bureaucratic nonsense, TSA security theatre — that I just wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

I once had to make a…let’s say “quasi-voluntary contribution” to get out of Kazakhstan. As I was entirely happy to do so my suggestion is that you have pay to get out of the US, not in. A week in Orlando should be enough for most. Or 18 seconds in Las Vegas.

Dominionist infested Disney.

Actually, the Dominionists hate Disney, thinking it’s been infected by the notorious gay agenda

Aw, hell. I bet my 15 minutes started when I submitted the first post, and now I’ve missed them.

The Republican congresses of 2001-2007 offered a parade of negislation: among my favorites is the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.

I may be stretching my luck here, but would an administrative agency created by negislation be called a deparen’tment? (For example: the Department of Homeland Security.)

The conventional wisdom used to be that the only effective way for an academic to communicates facts to legislators was to meet with staff.

The assumption that academics are better supplied with facts than legislative staff are strikes me as interesting.

Just as a matter of perspective, I think $25 is about what a visitor to Washington DC, staying in a major hotel, already pays per day in room taxes.

And will this tax be levied on those of us who are in transit through Houston or Newark or wherever, from Europe to Mexico or other parts of Central America? We already have to have the right passport with the right type of chip, send our details in advance, stand a long time in lines, get photographed and have our fingerprints taken. I wouldn’t be surprised if the US wanted to charge us 25 Dollars for passing through an airport.

“Entry fees are a common resort for poor countries that have limited opportunities to earn foreign currency.”

In the Philippines they resort to an exit fee. And don’t be impressed if your airline says they covered it as part of the ticket, the people collecting it when you leave won’t accept the voucher.

bizarre. And what exceptions will be made for students, many of which are on US-sponsored scholarships? Maybe they will be excepted thru their visa.

But what about people visiting conferences? Also charged?

Have these fools considered that as it stands, EVERYONE in the world who wants to travel to the U.S. of A needs a visa, and EVERYONE must present themselves in person to their local US Embassy or consulate (if the consulate issues that particular type of visa) for a face-to-face interview?

That face-to-face interview costs USD$100, non-refundable, plus additional fees for the actual visa, if the Embasy/Consulate interviewer decides to issue one for that indivual. Add in travel expenses and additional fees if a medical exam or FBI background check is required (many types of visas require one), and we’re already talkling real money for most people in this world.

Now, after running that gauntlet, we expect a visitor to the US pay an additional USD$25 once they arrive?

Perhaps, we could get more people to visit the US if we didn’t subject them to full-body cavity searchs and arbitary arrest with indefinte detention at the border crossings?

My impression, after following up Henry’s lead above, is that this would apply only to visitors from visa-waiver countries who are coming on the visa-waiver program. So, it won’t apply to citizens, LPRs, visa holders, people from Canada (it’s a different program) etc. It seems that it will work via the new program which is to replace the I-94w form that visa waiver visitors now fill out. Rather than filling out information on a form and turning it in at the border the same information must now be filled in on-line before leaving. The information is to be checked against a data-base and a determination is made as to whether the person is admissible or not. Supposedly this is done w/in 72 hours. I guess it only has to be done once every few years no matter how often the person visits though it was unclear from what I read whether this was the 72 hour name-check process or the whole data-entry process. It’s basically a more accurate way to gather the information now gained via paper cards. The one advantage of the new system is that people who are now rejected at the border, kept in a holding cell, and then sent back on the next plane because they are not eligible for visa-waiver entry will be denied before they come. It seems (though this isn’t totally clear from what I could find) that the fee would be paid as part of this process, via credit card, I guess. So, it only applies to those entering this way.

I think the fee is dumb. The on-line registration process does not seem inherently bad to me though of course there are draw-backs. Apparently the EU is planning to roll out it’s own version quite soon, too.

This information is gathered from reading a bunch of different accounts, none of which was perfectly clear, even to someone used to reading such things. So, if others have more accurate information please do contribute.

The assumption that academics are better supplied with facts than legislative staff are strikes me as interesting.

That’s not assumed. The health staff person for Senator X may know more about the entire U.S. health care ‘system’ than I do. (She is also likely brighter than me.) But I know more about mental health care for children than she could ever afford to learn.

Perhaps, we could get more people to visit the US if we didn’t subject them to full-body cavity searchs and arbitary arrest with indefinte detention at the border crossings?

You sound like a terrorist. Please step out of the line and come with me to the interrogation room.

On one hand I get your point. But on the other, $25 is hardly a deal breaker.

As a US citizen it costs $50.00 USD in taxes just to land in Paris, France. This morning I just paid $388.00 USD in taxes to land in Kiev, Ukraine. And I am fairly certain those taxes aren’t going to benefit me in anyway.

What we should be concerned about is where is that money going to go?
What is the exact purpose of this fund?
Will it be spent to improve our systems of mass transportation?
Will it be used to offset the cost of fuel if a non-US citizen rents a car?
Will small tourist based companies benefit with subsidies and be listed in promotions?

Before labeling something as completely stupid, let us atleast have a real look at the small print.

The fundies think this is all prep for the rise of the Anti-Christ. We’ll stop the evil ones at the border, protecting the nursery of the New Messiah.
The radical mystics think it’s about already entrenched Apocalyptic evil safeguarding itself against the return of militant-this-time Jesus.
Myself to me it looks like the speed-freak neighbor finally cracking up, barricading himself in the house, watching out the attic louvers all night and day with his M-16 and AK-47 and ammo close to hand. Because the chemicals and lack of sleep and food have altered his grasp of reality past coherent retrieval.
He’s nuts, armed, and alternately terrified and hyper-confident.
I’d like to move, but the rent’s too cheap to foreswear. Plus we’re walking distance to schools and shopping, which saves a bundle on gas.

_Your confidence in the efficiency of the US government’s immigration bureaucracy is touching._

No, nick s., it’s not. I’m a lawyer who works in immigration and I know the situation all too well. But, many people are not eligible for visa waiver travel but attempt, usually through ignorance of their ineligibility, to entry that way anyway. Such people are then kept in a holding cell at the airport for a while and eventually put back on a plane. It’s expensive and unpleasant for everyone involved. If the new system works fairly well (the check system, not the fee system- the two are tied together but not the same system) then at least some, hopefully most, of these people won’t try to enter on as a visa waiver visitor and so won’t face this problem. There will obviously still be other problems and this system won’t be perfect- I never implied it would be- but for _these_ cases it’s an improvement.

Roy- I’m afraid I don’t have the slightest idea what your talking about.

Well, could be a sort of baptist-bootlegger tax on airtravel, which might be a small step re. global warming.

If it’s paid on-line by credit card, I fail to see how the admin costs can possibly as high as Henry suggests.

Air Canada now flies Vancouver-Sydney non-stop. No more middle of the night dealings with DHS in Honolulu.

I like negislation, and self-defeating is already available as an adjective. But for academic cred you need a poncey Greek formation, like Ernest Jones’ parapraxis for Freud’s elegant German coinage Fehlleistung. I suggest the adjective “paratelic” (para=against, telos=purpose): thus, a paratelic law, regulation or policy.