Smokers began paying dramatically higher prices yesterday. The federal cigarette tax jumped by 62 cents a pack overnight, to $1.01. Levies on other tobacco products also rose.
Obviously, smokers are upset. But this is an excellent opportunity to do what most tobacco users consistently say they hope to do: quit smoking.
About seven in 10 smokers say they want to stop smoking, and with good reason. People who do significantly reduce their risk of dying prematurely.
They also reduce the risk of harming others around them — especially children — with their smoking. Children raised with a smoker have much higher rates of asthma, as well as more frequent and severe respiratory infections.
In both Missouri and Illinois, help is available. Both states run so-called quit lines, toll-free telephone numbers that provide information about quitting.
Because money raised by the higher cigarette tax will go to fund health care for poor children, many smokers say they’re being victimized, forced to subsidize services to others. But the truth is that it’s the rest of us who subsidize them. We’ve been doing it for years.
Even with higher federal taxes, smokers don’t come close to covering the costs they impose on society. Cigarettes would have to sell for $10.28 a pack to recoup all that money.
The direct medical cost of tobacco-related illness in the U.S. — that’s what we pay for doctors, hospitals, surgery and extras like oxygen — is nearly $97 billion a year. The cost to Medicare is about $19 billion, while Medicaid programs shell out about $31 billion.
No other preventable cause of illness and death — not drinking, obesity or even illegal drugs — comes close to the toll inflicted by tobacco. It kills nearly 440,000 Americans every year and sickens millions more.
Of course, most smokers already are aware of those grim statistics. What they don’t know is how to stop.
Research shows that the most successful tobacco cessation starts with advice and counseling from your doctor. Physicians can prescribe drugs like Zyban and Chantix that reduce craving for cigarettes.
Nicotine replacement products can also reduce withdrawal symptoms. They’re available over-the-counter at drug and discount stores.
People who get support and counseling also improve the odds of successfully quitting. They’re offered at many local hospitals, as well as by voluntary health groups like the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society. Both groups also offer free online resources.
It’s not easy to quit smoking, but millions of Americans have done it. The health benefits are immediate and long-lasting.
Nobody likes to pay higher taxes. But they will provide a new incentive for many smokers — and especially many young smokers — to quit.
Besides, there’s one sure-fire way to stop paying higher cigarette taxes: Stop smoking.
Getting Help To Quit:
In Missouri, smokers can call 1-800-784-8669 for the state Department of Health and Senior Services Quit Line. In Illinois, the number is 1-800-784-8937.
The American Lung Association offers free counseling, support and information about local resources at 1-800-Lung-USA. It offers free, on-line help to quit smoking through its Freedom From Smoking program, www.ffsonline.org. The American Cancer Society has online resources at www.cancer.org.
STL:
Gave up, eh?
Your house of straw logic collapses around you.
.
Running to a house of twig sentiment, it too falls to the ground.
.
Ashamed and frustrated, you run away.
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The Big Bad Wolf of Truth, his razor-sharp facts glistening, howls with laughter at your swiftly receding form, and shouts:
.
“I’m loving it.”
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STL:
“The pinnacle of fairness is that someone’s deadly habit does not affect others.”
I agree with that wholeheartedly. I’m frankly astonished that bars are allowed to operate: An establishment that sells you something whose sole purpose is intoxication, and when you leave you just get in your car and drive among unsuspecting civilians. I guess drinking has a better public image.
” … So let’s be fair – don’t do it where the fully documented deadly effects of second hand smoke can harm innocents.”
Again, I agree with you. That’s what all the effort to ban smoking in public places is about — although I think banning it in private establishments, where the decision should be between the owner and the customer, is overstepping on the part of government (see my earlier post about the woman who’d never let her feelings be known to a restaurant).
But what does that have to do with imposing an outrageous tax? It’s one thing to banish someone to certain areas; it’s a whole other thing to steal money from them while you do it.
“Let me add an option to the two I listed for smokers in my post of 9:13 pm April 2nd, 2009″
Yeah, I got a kick out of your “other choices” they could make: 1) Join a program to help them stop smoking or 2) go cold turkey. There’s a subtlety in there that escapes me, ’cause it seems to me that they both lead to the same place.
” keep on smoking and stop whining.”
How is that different from anything you’ve already said? That’s been your position throughout this thread.
“If you have other options for a smokers recourse please add to my list of 3.”
You really only offer two choices: Shut up and take it or quit smoking. My whole argument has been the unfairness, and nothing you’ve said has made it seem fair.
“At 9:44 am April 5th, 2009 I listed my criteria for requesting sources.”
Yeah, but that post was in response to my own, in which I chided you for being snide to people you disagree with. Do we just ignore all your earlier posts, then?
” None of the content of the posts in this thread that I have chosen to get involved in have warranted a request for documentation.”
But that was your justification for being snotty in your earlier posts: “However, when they make up stuff in their posts and present it as facts, then I disagree and request documentation.”
“There are many other threads on these PD boards. Look around.”
So I just caught you on a bad day, then? “I’m usually much nicer.” You should treat every post as though someone is just meeting you. I’m living proof that can happen.
“Washington State, ay?
What brought you to these PD boards?”
Our local newspaper runs excerpts from other papers around the nation every Sunday, and one of this week’s was the above editorial from the PD. I wanted to read the whole article to see if was as unfair in toto as it seemed in part. It was.
“How’s the Smoke Shop doing?”
When I first saw this I wondered how you knew about the Smoke Shop here in Spokane — it’s just a little hole in the wall around the corner from the bus station. My response would have been that I don’t know, as I avoid that particular block because, while I don’t mind walking 10 feet or so behind a smoker, there are always three or four of them hanging around outside the Smoke Shop, and that’s too much of a cloud for me to brave unless I need to.
But then I followed the link and saw it was about a restaurant/bar in Seattle that I’ve never been to, so my answer is I don’t know. From the reviews (http://www.yelp.com/biz/ballard-smoke-shop-seattle), it seems to be doing pretty well.
I voted against that law, btw.
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— Michael
“And as for the documentation you seek, what could possibly change your mind? You seem to believe that smokers’ only recourse is to quit, and that anything that is done to them is justified because they don’t. . . . “It’s called fairness. You should look it up.”
.
The pinnacle of fairness is that someone’s deadly habit does not affect others.
I really don’t care if someone smokes. So let’s be fair – don’t do it where the fully documented deadly effects of second hand smoke can harm innocents. Let me add an option to the two I listed for smokers in my post of 9:13 pm April 2nd, 2009 – keep on smoking and stop whining. If you have other options for a smokers recourse please add to my list of 3.
.
.
“Perhaps in face-to-face conversation, or in other threads, but not once in this thread have you asked anyone to back up what they claim. And your “disagreement” consists largely of mockery. Show me where I’m wrong.”
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At 9:44 am April 5th, 2009 I listed my criteria for requesting sources. None of the content of the posts in this thread that I have chosen to get involved in have warranted a request for documentation. There are many other threads on these PD boards. Look around.
.
.
Washington State, ay?
What brought you to these PD boards?
How’s the Smoke Shop doing?
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/251121_smoking07.html
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This is why I read for a living, rather than do math.
$2 tax is actually a 50 percent markup if the total cost is $6.
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STL:
“then I disagree and request documentation.”
Perhaps in face-to-face conversation, or in other threads, but not once in this thread have you asked anyone to back up what they claim. And your “disagreement” consists largely of mockery. Show me where I’m wrong.
And as for the documentation you seek, what could possibly change your mind? You seem to believe that smokers’ only recourse is to quit, and that anything that is done to them is justified because they don’t.
As for the taxes you mentioned, here in Washington state, we have most of those taxes, but at nowhere near the rate applied to cigarettes (for documentation, see http://dor.wa.gov/content/FindTaxesAndRates/OtherTaxes/). And while most non-prepared foods aren’t taxed, the ones that are only face the sales tax, 8.7%; cigarette buyers pay that plus an additional excise tax of more than $2.00 per pack — about 33 percent, at current prices (a pack costs around $6 here; it’s $10 in New York). So perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. What I should have said was “Okay, then, how about if we only tax the sh*t out of food that isn’t vitally necessary, like we do with totally voluntary cigarettes?”
It’s called fairness. You should look it up.
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— Michael
“People you don’t agree with are members of the “wacko right” who hold “phony outrage” posting “rants” taken from the “extreme right wing playbook.”
This is how you discuss the way our society (a word based on “social” btw) should be run?”
.
I have no issue because someone posts content that I disagree.
However, when they make up stuff in their posts and present it as facts, then I disagree and request documentation.
Fact is, very seldom do they respond and produce any source.
because
there isn’t any source. They made it up to fit their agenda and like it’s nice ring.
Most people call this behavior lying.
I have a low tolerance level for lying. When it is part of the content that supports a right wing rant, then I have zero tolerance.
.
.
“Smoking is not a necessity. Eating is.” Okay, then, how about if we only tax the food that isn’t vitally necessary for existence?
.
We already tax food – from grocery stores, restaurants and bars.
It’s called a sales tax.
It’s called tourism tax.
Maybe you’ve heard of it.
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The answer to this is very simple. If the goal is to get people to stop smoking, then all government revenues which are derived from the cultivation, processing, transportation and sale of tobacco products should be directed into a fund that can only be used to provide smoking cessasion treatments. If the program is successful, then it will deminish along with the need.
As soon as it goes to fund other activities, our elected representatives will have a conflict of interest.
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An off-the-thread, but, in my opinion, nonetheless important message to STL:
A few years ago, a conservative friend of mine gave me a one-year subscription to Rush Limbaugh’s newsletter. I found it to be the most insulting, sophomoric thing I’ve ever read (one small example: He always referred to Sen. Kerry as “John Effing Kerry”), and I read for a living. I literally had to force myself to read every issue, and was glad when the subscription expired.
I had thought that sort of infantile behavior was the domain of such extreme right-wingers as Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly. But STL, you’ve shown me that other parts of the spectrum can also ignore reasoned discourse and resort to the ad hominem attacks.
People you don’t agree with are members of the “wacko right” who hold “phony outrage” posting “rants” taken from the “extreme right wing playbook.”
This is how you discuss the way our society (a word based on “social” btw) should be run?
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Lest my input be dismissed as
1) Right-wing dittoism: I think Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot. I can’t remember the last national-level Republican I voted for, but it’s been decades.
2) A smoker’s whining: I don’t use any tobacco products in any form.
Of all the comments in this thread, I think one of the most objectionable is the “Don’t like the tax? Quit using the product!” That’s your justification for applying an onerous fee on a legal product? It’s a pretty safe bet you don’t smoke, and probably never have.
But what if a 100 percent markup were applied to something you use? A few years ago, Seattle, Wash., put to a vote a dime-a-cup tax on coffee to fund early childhood education programs, and it died by a better than 2-to-1 margin. (Google the phrase “seattle tax on coffee” to read what they thought of the idea.) California once tried taxing cell phones to fund telephone service for lower-income people; it lost by a huge margin.
People are only cavalier about taxing other people’s predilections.
Another canard is the “increased cost on social services.” The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, signed in 1997, included more than $365 billion to be paid to the states to compensate them for those extra costs. Is that money being spent subsidizing hospitals and care centers? Not on your life! And there’s no limit to the yearly payments, either; they’re perpetual. Every state, county and city in the nation includes tobacco settlement money to fill in gaps in their budgets.
“Smoking is not a necessity. Eating is.” Okay, then, how about if we only tax the food that isn’t vitally necessary for existence? Anything not on the government-approved food pyramid should be fair game. Ice cream? Potato chips? Gatorade? All non-essential luxuries! A 20 percent tax on non-pyramid foodstuffs would solve our budget deficit by the end of the month. Any chance you’ll support that?
My basic objection is the inherent unfairness of it. Why should smokers pay an egregious tax simply because other people don’t like what they do? Why should smokers be taxed to pay for ads telling kids how disgusting their habit is? I can’t stand the smell of coffee on somebody’s breath, but I’d never think of making my co-workers pay for anti-coffee campaigns. Yet that’s the least of the offenses heaped on smokers.
I remember when grocery stores and fast-food restaurants banned smoking because — well, who cares why? They were certainly within their rights to, and they only had to answer to their customers and shareholders.
But now the hue and cry is up all over the country (and world, for that matter) to get the government to outlaw smoking everywhere it can be smelled and/or seen and/or thought of. Washington state recently jumped on that bandwagon. I asked a decidedly liberal friend who had voted for the ban if she had ever told a restaurant manager she wouldn’t eat there because they allowed smoking. She seemed stunned at the idea.
My own belief toward holier-than-thouism is best summed up by George Carlin: “It’s okay to ask a man to walk in your shoes. Just don’t try to nail ‘em onto his feet.”
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It’s really a matter of personal responsibility. You smoke. You get sick. You smoke. You make other people sick. You smoke. You pay for the damage you cause.
If someone runs into your car, or goes off the road and runs into your house you expect the driver to pay for the damage. Why can’t smokers pay for the damage they cause to individuals for increased health care and to society for the increase in our medical insurance and hospital costs.
Quit your whining, and wheezing. Also, if you don’t want to pay the tax. Quit smoking! Then we’ll all be happy.
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— AJ
“Common sense, logic, and a basic command of the English language are severely lacking in your skill set. No hope or change for you so I won’t waste any more of my time trying to edumacate you. Goodbye”
ok
Frankly, I’m not surprised you’ve given up .
You knew it wasn’t a valid argument from letter 1.
Herd mentality.
You know Obama’s reference and you can’t change it.
No matter how much you lie here on these boards.
.
That’s what happens after you hype nothing stuff.
Wolf, Wolf, Wolf.
Who Cares, Who Cares? Who Cares?
.
Your choice
Keep it up
Self inflected wounds on your credibility.
Almost fatal.
You’re self destructing
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STL,
You don’t read well do you?
“I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
NOT ANY OF YOUR TAXES!!!!!
Common sense, logic, and a basic command of the English language are severely lacking in your skill set. No hope or change for you so I won’t waste any more of my time trying to edumacate you. Goodbye
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— AJ
“Fact is, he lied about taxes and who he would tax. I knew it was coming, a lot of these Hopey Changey’s didn’t”
.
You know exactly that he was talking about income tax and payroll taxes.
Quit trying to make something out of nothing.
Faux rage de jour
Directly from the extreme right wing playbook
All the wacko players in formation
.
You rightees are nuts to nitpick away at crumbs and completely miss the big picture.
I guess that’s why you’re really wackos.
.
False rage.
Complete BS.
Destroyer of your own credibility.
.
.
Keep it up
I’m lovin it
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STL,
“If the CHIP source of funds runs low and the program is proven to be effective then it will be funded another way. ”
Yes, by more taxes from a person who said:
“I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
Fact is, he lied about taxes and who he would tax. I knew it was coming, a lot of these Hopey Changey’s didn’t
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Fnbrowning… Thanks for the distortion, for putting words in my mouth. I said nothing along the lines of your addendum; all you’re doing is tapping semantics. You can’t deny that there are laws in place to protect people who are too stupid to protect themselves. Now, go ahead, please try.
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— AJ
“Simply, smokers will pay any price to smoke.’
.
Still, It’s one of several choices they can make.
Another one is to get into a program to help them stop smoking.
Still another is to stop cold turkey.
.
There are choices.
Smokers have made a choice.
They need to make a different choice.
.
If the CHIP source of funds runs low and the program is proven to be effective then it will be funded another way. The purpose was to fund the program. It would be a nice bonus if it had to be funded a different way.
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STL,
Now you are caught in the circular logic statement haligh made above. You must have missed it so I’ll quote it:
“Except the less I smoke, the less money children get for healthcare. The more I smoke, the more money children get for healthcare. Isn’t that a terrible dependency to have created? Way to go, government, you have made the consequence of my quitting smoking that fewer children can receive health insurance.”
To simplify for you; the govt wants tax money so they tax a vice they know has inelastic demand. That tax hits the consumer the most. They say the money from that tax will go to child healthcare. So if people stop smoking the tax dries up and then no money for the kiddies. Woops, just created a problem we tried to solve.
The govt knows people won’t stop smoking, especially the lower incomes that tax is targeted to, so the tax continues. Obamamamadingdongs goal still is never solved. People keep dying from smoking and the people he said he wouldn’t tax, get taxed. Maybe his goal IS to tax people. I’ll call him a liar then.
You apparently are not a smoker or don’t know what inelastic demand is, or how the tax incidence really works. Simply, smokers will pay any price to smoke.
I don’t listen to Rush…too far right for me. I stay in the middle where logic and common sense prevail. Try it.
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— EJ Rotert sez:
“when the adults refuse to be adults, it does become the government’s job. This is why we have laws 1mandating things like motorcycle helmets and payment of taxes, among other things”
HOLY FASCIST STATE, Batman!! EJ Rotert just said “yes” to any tyranny .gov can think up as long as it’s hidden inside the proper rhetoric.
I think “adults” in this case can be translated to mean: Do as, act as, think as, EJ Rotert or be punished by the STATE with his blessing.
All GLORY TO THE WORKER’S PARADISE! DEMAND CONFORMANCE!
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If we quit smoking, do you think they will stop the program this tax funds? no, they will tax the rest of you…it’s a trick…they always pull this…tax a vice so that everybody thinks it is a good idea “let the drinkers pay higher tax for their vice etc.” and then when the funding dries up, they can NEVER stop a government program, they just fund it with other tax money. This is exactly what is happening with the gas tax….we are using less gas, so now they want to tax mileage.
and as for subsidising health care for smokers…I would love to see the same subject brought up about obese people…we fund their twinkie derived illness every day, but fatty’s aren’t the boogeyman, smokers are for now. When that is eraticated, they will move to the next ill. hope it isn’t you!
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Bill… Sorry, but when the adults refuse to be adults, it does become the government’s job. This is why we have laws mandating things like motorcycle helmets and payment of taxes, among other things.
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Ahhh… I already smell it. To quote The Kinks, the air smells `unnaturally clean.’
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People wanted change, and now it is coming….and it will be manifest in a lower life style driven by higher taxes coming from so many different angles that we can’t keep up. Wait…just wait until Obama gets his way with that “cap and trade” on so-called carbon emissions in his energy bill. The cost to heat your home will triple. No, it won’t look like a tax, and it will be blamed on the energy companies, but it is the result of huge taxes imposed on them for burning coal, oil, gas ….anything we use to produce electricy……….and that is just the beginning…..you voted for change……….here it comes…and it is called higher taxes for everyone. In the Obama world, all wealth belongs to the central government….it is called communism (not socialism) call it like it is, or will be soon.
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— AJ
“Obama says he wont raise taxes and then he goes right around and does it. Did you miss his line “not any of your taxes”? . .”
.
Smoking is not a necessity
As a result paying taxes on tobacco products is the choice of an individual that purchases tobacco products.
Eating is a necessity.
If federal taxes went up on food then your point would have merit.
But they didn’t
so
your post is
just a rant
and an indefensible rant at at that.
.
Quit hyping Rush’s most recent feather tickle
Start thinking for yourself again and stop listening to the defacto head of the Republican party.
.
Plug in your brain
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This is the funniest cyclical logic I’ve seen all year. The two main reasons for this new round of cigarette taxes are: children’s healthcare and you really should quit smoking it’s bad for you.
The rhetoric follows: don’t you want children to have healthcare? Yes, I do. And don’t you want to be healthy and quit smoking? Yes, I do (slightly less than I want children to have healthcare). Except the less I smoke, the less money children get for healthcare. The more I smoke, the more money children get for healthcare. Isn’t that a terrible dependency to have created? Way to go, government, you have made the consequence of my quitting smoking that fewer children can receive health insurance.
Alcoholics die younger, too. Liver disease can get expensive, and when they drive they put other people in danger. Heart disease is a leading cause of death, well beyond cancer and emphysema. So, should raise McDonald’s taxes unnaturally high to convince people to quit eating food that can cause heart disease? Should we tax people who ride ATVs, or diabetics who don’t stay on a regimen? All of these are, after all, personal choices. *I* choose not to eat at McDonald’s for my health, and *I* don’t want to pay for the poor choices of ATV riders, fraternity pledges, drunk drivers and children who play contact sports.
We will continue to pay for behaviors we don’t agree with as long as our tax dollars go toward medicare and medicaid. I am not arguing against those programs, but pointing out that it takes away an individual’s ability to choose what behavior he wants to support or not support. And, in an effort to “fix” that unintended consequence, lawmakers re beginning to single out certain types of behavior that the majority finds undesirable and taxing it to death. And while most people feel that people shouldn’t smoke, it remains a legal activity that we should have the freedom to enjoy just like any other recreation. For lawmakers, the impetus is not that they care about me quitting smoking, but that the national sentiment is such that they can get away with it. My occasional cigarette is something I deem worthy of the cost. All you drivers, eaters, rugby players, skydivers, woodworkers out there should care about personal choices being put on the chopping block of acceptable externalities.
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STL,
Obama says he wont raise taxes and then he goes right around and does it. Did you miss his line “not any of your taxes”? He knows dam well the inelasticity of the cigarette demand curve, especially with the lower income population. If you remember back to your Microeconomics class you’ll know that when you have an elastic supply and an inelastic demand, the burden of the tax fall upon the consumer.
How’s the Hopey Changey Hype working out for you? I see no change here.
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“Who says the revenue stream will dry up?”
Anybody with a lick of common sense and basic math skills.
“There is NO proof that tax receipts will “crater” if people stop smoking.”
Uh huh. Feel free to come up with another adjective to describe what happens to a source of revenue that depends on people buying a product you are actively trying to remove from the market.
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Tim, I saw a story years ago about a World War II vet who cherished his cigarette in the foxholes he dug because they gave him just a little comfort. My mother refuses to give up smoking as it’s the one vice she has and it brings her comfort at the end of a hard day of taking my dimentia-ridden father. Useless? To you perhaps..but not to the millions of people that smoke.
Let’s take your synopsis and expand it. For you people that eat ice cream, candy, and other fattening foods…you’re probably overweight..so that means you’ll probably die earlier and require a lot of medical care before that (which I’ll end up footing some of the bill for in my taxes)…so we need to raise the taxes you pay for these items. Tim, candy and ice cream serve no good purpose..100% useless food. For you coffee drinkers..you’ll be taxed on every 4th cup of coffee as anything more than that causes a racing heart and could cause additional health problems..that my taxes will end up funding. For you lazy people that don’t exercise..you’re slovenly so you’re going to have to pay a lazy tax since I’ll be paying for your medical care through my taxes as you get older. On and on and on. The bottom line is that many people abuse their bodies or don’t take care of their health the way they should..and we taxpayers end up footing the bill for healthcare for these people when they get older. Picking on smokers is easy. Let’s see how easy it is to pick on a fat guy drinking a cup of coffee and eating a scone in Starbucks.
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Who says the revenue stream will dry up? There is NO proof that tax receipts will “crater” if people stop smoking. People will have more money if they stop buying cigarettes, so they will spend it on something else. It’s not like Americans are going to save all that money. You people and your doom and gloom forecasts are completely out of touch with reality and economic logic.
As to AJ, you are right on the money. This is a HUGE new tax for people that smoke, no question about it.
fnbrowning, I don’t really disagree with you. Maybe it will be beer, or fast food, or who knows what. The one major difference in my mind is that people with food problems STILL have to eat. Food is a necessity. Smoking isn’t. There isn’t one single thing about smoking that is useful, beneficial, or desirable. Hell even a beer now and then has been shown to have positive benefits. Smoking tobacco is 100% useless…
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So when the revenue stream dries up as current smokers quit and no one takes their place, we can expect the state to curtail nanny-care in the same proportion, right?
Hello?
Hello?
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I’m so glad our parent, the PD Editorial Board, gave us this nice lecture on how we should live our lives. So now smokers get a tax as punishment along with a stern lecture from the all knowing, better than the rest of us PD workers. The Gestapo has returned.
This move is dangerous and a slippery slope for all other behaviors that liberals deem as costly to society. When is the tax increase for fast food coming? How about monitoring households to determine how many hours they spend per week exercising. If they don’t meet a federally mandated amount, we can tax those people as well. Both couch potatoes and fast food eaters cost us as much as smokers do. Not sure about everyone else, but I’m ready for the PD editorial lecture on the perils of those behaviors.
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To “fnbrowning”. Three weeks ago today, my mom died (well before her time) from lung cancer. Her whole life she shifted the argument concerning the effects of smoking to how other vices are minimalized, just as you have done. And just as you, she was absolutely right…and still she died slowly and painfully. Smoke that cigarette, eat that cheeseburger, knock down that extra shot…that’s each individual’s right. Taxes are a small consequence to those left behind.
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So, all the self-righteous non-smokers think this type of behavior tax will never effect them? Guess again, fatso!
This cigarette tax is just the latest, most visible behavior tax. But with this success, the target is already shifting, and you smug non-smokers are next. I say this because it’s been my observation that the most vocal critics of other people’s habits usually are overweight.
Being overweight or obese increases the risk of numerous costly illnesses and conditions such as coronary heart disease (which claims more lives per year in the U.S. than the next 7 leading causes of death combined), type-2 diabetes, cancer, heart attacks, and strokes.
All the “truths” in the editorial about society “subsidizing” smokers is just as accurate for the numerous costly illnesses caused by people that stuff their pie-holes with cakes and potatoe chips.
The rest of us have been carrying the ever-increasing burden fatso’s increased health care costs, and we’ve been doing it for years.
“The power to tax is the power to destroy” And the .gov is addicted to taxes. So when the persecuted smokers are taxed to a tiny minority, the healthcare taxes will be looking for another victim like a bloodsucking vampire. You and your addiction to food may well be the next target.
Where did you hide the bathroom scale?
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— AJ
“I guess a 159% increase is not a tax increase in a tax almost specifically targeted at the lower income bracket. Some change.”
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Invalid Hyped Loco Comparison
Those paying this tax are doing so on their own free will.
Don’t want to pay it?
Simple – don’t buy tobacco products.
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Stop the phony outrage
Trying to hype a nothing into a something.
It’s a tiring ineffective predictive tactic of the wacko right.
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It erodes any credibility you might have by conditioning posters to expect to make mountains out of molehills.
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btw – Obama signed the bill about 2 months ago in early February.
Where have you been?
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It is not the job of government to make adults quit smoking.
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“I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
… Barack Obama, Dover NH Sept 12 2008
I guess a 159% increase is not a tax increase in a tax almost specifically targeted at the lower income bracket. Some change.
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You guys are a riot. In a few months, once federal tax receipts crater, there will be an editorial on this paper lamenting a lack of funding for SCHIP.
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