Sears did charge a shipping tax many years ago, until they were sued for doing so.

All States, which have a sales tax, require that you pay taxes on goods bought online. It's called a Use Tax. You are required to declare the amount of Use Tax owed when you file your State income tax form each year. Few people do, but if you're caught (I was once), you have to pay the back taxes, plus interest, plus a penalty fee. I ended up paying more than double what I would have paid if I had declared the tax owed in a timely manner.

I agree. We're overpopulated anyway. What does it matter if a bunch of crackheads fry themselves into a coffin. Few of them contribute anything positive to society.

As for the lottery... Well, it does teach us that gambling isn't smart, so I suppose it could be considered educational... kind of.

Not only pork barrel projects, but also corporate welfare. An example would be McDonalds getting millions of dollars to subsidize their advertising. This is happening with multi-billion dollar corporations throughout the U.S... Even the ones which ship American jobs overseas.