JP5 is right. She is referring to the luxury tax implemented in 1991.
http://www.ncpa.org/ea/eama92/eama92k.htm
The 1990 budget agreement included federal excise taxes on boats, aircraft and jewelry. The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) projected that the luxury taxes on those three classes of goods would raise $31 million in fiscal 1991. In fact, the actual revenue for 1991 was just over half that amount ($16.6 million). But the taxes did have other effects.
* They cost 7,600 jobs in the boating industry, 1,470 in the aircaft industry and 330 in jewelry manufacturing.
* These figures do not include job losses that could be attributed to any other factor such as the recession.
* The lost jobs cost $24.2 million in unemployment benefits plus income tax revenue the government didn't get, so taking into account the $16.6 million collected, the net effect of the taxes was a loss of $7.6 million in fiscal 1991.
It's been a part of Economics 101 ever since.