Can tax on violent video games fund safer schools?
Everybody wants safer schools. They are, after all, the spot where our most precious resources, our children, spend the bulk of their day.
The problem with most school safety proposals, as it is with every other education issue, is paying for it.
Now one Delaware County state rep thinks he knows where to find the money to beef up school safety programs.
Rep. Chris Quinn, R-168 of Middletown, wants to slap a 10 percent tax on violent video games. You read it right. A Republican in Harrisburg is calling for a new tax.
Quinn actually has floated two different proposals, HB2704 and 2705, that would enact the 10 percent levy on video games labeled “mature” or “adult only.” Quinn believes the measure could raise as much as $3.5 million. That’s a lot of school security. Quinn’s measure addresses several crucial issues involving schools, young people and taxes.
First off, Quinn is well aware of the mounting burden on tax- payers who struggle under the weight of increasing property taxes, which provide the bulk of education funding in Pennsylvania. He does not want to add to that burden.
He does, however, want to make schools safer.
He also wants to do something else. That would be raise awareness of the amount of time young people are being exposed to violent content in video games and the belief of many who see a link between that violence and the uptick in school violence, in particular school shootings.
Quinn lauded the move by the Legislature last year to appropriate $60 million for school security projects. But he pointed out it was a one-time initiative. He wants to do more, including a recurring revenue source.
“The crux of the bill is I’m simply trying to make schools safe,” Quinn said. “It’s about identifying a source of funding to help combat the growing violence.”
Quinn suggested school districts could apply for funds that could be used for cameras, bulletproof glass or other safety materials.
He knows he’s treading a fine line here, to say nothing of the usual lockstep opposition he will face from his own caucus in the state Capitol, where Republicans have never met a new tax they would not try to shoot down.
Some believe Quinn’s measure comes dangerously close to censorship and infringing on First Amendment rights.
The state rep, who won a tight election to his second term in Harrisburg in November, thinks it’s worth the fight.
He’s backed by a task force from the American Psychological Association, which determined that exposure to violent video games was related to increased aggression and a dip in empathy.
Others aren’t quite as sure, even suggesting the opposite, that violent crime can actually go down when young people are playing video games, if for no other reason than it is likely to keep them off the street.
Back in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California law that banned the sale of violent video games to minors, calling it a First Amendment free speech right. The court ruled video games in fact protected speech, much like newspapers, movies and books.
Quinn doesn’t want to ban violent video games, only to make it a bit more expensive to buy them.
Quinn notes that by the time a child is 18 years old today, they likely have seen more than
16,000 murders and another
200,000 acts of violence, all on the various screens in front of which they spend so much of their time.
Quinn also has made himself a target of the industry, which as you can imagine is not a big fan of his proposal.
“I got a lot of pushback from the industry on this bill,” the Republican said. “The easiest thing to do would be to drop it and I’m not planning to drop it.”
Right now Quinn’s bills are relegated to two committees. His biggest fight just might be with Republican chairmen, who control what bills get voted on in committee, the only path to making it out to the full House for debate.
“This is a matter of trying to figure out, OK, here’s a problem, how do we try to generate some revenue that’s directly coming from the problem itself to help us offset it,” Quinn said.
We’re not sure that’s the case, but we give Quinn credit for taking up the fight. And we hope his bills get a chance to be robustly debated in Harrisburg.