Posted on 02/06/2007 7:41:28 AM PST by SmithL
Because ONLY cigarette smokers have children, dontcha know.
And, of course nearly all the money will be used for education. Educating the newer politicians how to move money into the general fund and take it out in pork.
Why not both? Let's tax the heck out of anything that can be considered even slightly naughty.
Also a tax on soy products. That money is to go toward school lunches for underprivileged children.
South Dakota voters voted in a $1 tax per pack increase in the November election. Our Legislature is now planning to use the "extra" revenue to fund education and emergency preparedness for the bird flu and make up any shortfall in the budget. Trouble is what will happen if, as the tax intends, people quit smoking? Obviously there are some basic economics missing.
Well, I'm here in Ohio and we had/have the same problem re: lotto and education (as if playing the lotto isn't an education!). This is how it was explained to me:
BUT this is what really happens:
$90 in state budget for yearly general education
$10 money generated by lotto, and behold...
------
$100 The usually $$ for general education.
So what happened to the "missing" $10 taking out of the initial state budget? That money goes to pork-barrel education projects: Head Start programs, etc. etc. to help politicians get elected next time around. You know, "educational programs", "for the children", etc. And, no, the politicians didn't lie: The money IS going to education. It fills the hole the politicians took out of the original education budget.
So once again this is a case of "There's the truth, and then there's the whole truth."
Unethical? Yes. Dishonorable? Yes. Deceptive? Technically, no. "They" did tell us that lotto money was going towards the state's education, and, technically, it is.
After all, "they" can't be blamed is we misunderstood. (<- playing the devil's advocate there)
I gave up smoking back in '83. I said then
if they raise the price of ciggies one more
time, I'm quitting. They did...and I did.
Back then you could get a whole carton for
$6.50. Every once in a while I ponder just
how much money I've saved over the years;
and how much my smoking acquaintances have
seen go up in smoke.
well there's $120 mill down the drain.
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