George Burnett opened the doors of his newest business venture, I Love Drilling Smoothie & Juice Bar, on Nov. 7 last year. Since then, his little store in Vernal, UT has attracted national attention for his pricing system–all drinks are the same price, except liberals pay a dollar more.
Burnett gave KSL news the reasoning behind this decision to base price off of political affiliation. “We have a fiscal problem in this country. To kind of help make that point a little bit, I charge [liberals] just a little more.” He claims that so far, all three liberal customers that have passed through have been “happy to pay the surcharge,” which is donated along with any tips received to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank that promotes Right-side policies.
While the liberals that have made purchases from Burnett may have been alright with coughing up the extra dollar, that doesn’t change the fact that he is charging people more money for having a different political ideology from his own. Burnett isn’t doing anything illegal by charging this “liberal tax,” but he is still violating one of the basic rules of being a decent human being–don’t be a jerk just because you can.
It’s a brilliant marketing ploy, I have to admit. As a small oil town in Utah, Vernal has a high population of conservatives who are ecstatic about this “liberal tax,” and the word about Burnett’s business venture has made national headlines due to both the Conservative support and the Liberal outrage. News websites from foxnews.com to thehuffingtonpost.com have run features on I Love Drilling, and Conservatives and Liberals alike have flocked to the I Love Drilling Facebook fan page to voice their thoughts on Burnett’s business practices. The comment section is filled with opinions, some positive, others not so much. From “way to sock it to those welfare-loving liberals!” to “you suck,” people from all over the country have let Burnett know their thoughts about his business practices.
Would it not have been enough to charge everyone an extra dollar, then donate all of the extra profits to a conservative cause? Was it really necessary to single out Liberals, and place all of the blame on them for the current state of the economy? One Liberal commenter took to the I Love Drilling Facebook page saying, “You can’t kick people towards you. You widen the chasm between Americans. Shame on you.” Another commenter makes the point, “Turning the purchase of a smoothie into yet another polarizing act is not what America needs.” I can’t help but to to agree with them. One political party is not more responsible than any other for the state of our economy. While Liberals traditionally support welfare programs, which made up approximately 12 percent of the 2012 federal budget according to usgovernmentspending.com, Conservatives support an active military, with our defense budget consisting of 25 percent of the federal spending in the 2012 fiscal year. Can either party be entirely to blame for the current fiscal crisis, if both sides support different kinds of government spending? No. Not at all.
Conservatives across the country are praising George Burnett for “sticking it to those cheap bastards” and “making them pay up” for voting Obama into office, as though an extra dollar spent on smoothies will make any Liberal more sympathetic to the Conservative cause. If Burnett’s goal is to get Liberals to understand the plight of the Conservatives, he’s going about it in the wrong way.