Video Games are Being Taxed?

I was able to forgive New Mexico when they changed my area code. But this is a little ridiculous: the Sierra Club of New Mexico is proposing a 1% tax on video games in order to "fund programs aimed at giving school kids an outdoors education" (learn more on The Huffington Post). What's really scary is what kind of precedent this might set. Videogamevoters.org has lots of other (slightly biased) information, including a ridiculously exaggerated video, and a nifty protest wall.

Bits On Our Mind (BOOM) is Cornell University's "annual research conference that showcases student efforts and creativity in digital technology and applications". This year I'll be presenting the technology used for my independent study last semester, my team's entry for the Games 4 Girls competition hosted by UIUC, and the raytracer my team used for last semester's graphics course. I'll also be giving a talk to high school students from all across upstate New York on interactive media and it's place in the world today.
Not to mention I'm a part of Cornell's Game Curriculum Design Team. We're amassing design curriculum for an after school program for middle school and high school students. The program, although focused in game design, has the express purpose of encouraging young students to become involved in technology. I feel like choking the video game industry with taxes will only hurt all the progress we (as a collective digital community) have made so far.