Posted on 03/28/2009 4:33:51 PM PDT by djf
This coming Wednesday, taxes on all forms of tobacco will go up. Taxes on a pack of cigarettes will increase 62 cents. Taxes on loose, rool-your-own tobacco will go from about a dollar a pound to an astounding $24 per pound.
All this is being done in the name of SCHIP, the State Childrens Health Insurance program.
My question is this: Given the fact that the vast majority of children don't smoke, but also given the fact that there is a growing obesity problem in children and young adults, wouldn't it make more sense to tax potato chips and Big Macs? Wouldn't that have more of an immediate benefit to the little chubbies?
The government basically views smokers as an unlimited source of revenue, who are addicted so they will always pay, and as a group that will never fight back.
Grow your own if possible!!
How about get the little heifers out from behind the keyboard? (Spoken as the fat kid...once a fat kid, always a fat kid.)
Sure tell them to give us another tax...dope.
Because, like all other "sin taxes" like gambling and liquor taxes, tobacco tax is a great way to tax the poor without everyone getting butt-hurt about it. In fact, they cheer you when you do it.
I’m the case in point. ;) I’m working on losing it and have been moderately successful...but it’s hard work.
Pretty good point. DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN!
I know it is. I dropped from a BMI of 37 to 23. I quit smoking a couple years later. Now they are going to tell me I have to quit drinking or something.
and most of them never realize that its a tax that raised the price, they blame the cost on the tobacco companies and vote Democrat anyway, just like gasoline.
Tobacco will be the most smuggled substance in America.
How bout a 2200% tax increase on the tax on a big mac?
It would be funny if it weren’t so sickening. Here In Michigan Jenny Granholm already calls the fall off in sin tax revenue “breathtaking” and the new taxes hadn’t even hit. She’s planning on using nearly a billion dollars in “stimulus” money just to balance the books.
Not yet because they are still enjoyed by everyone and have to be targeted then demonized first...........Tobacco was easy because even tho most Americans were once smokers, there were lots of patsies who were willing to jump on the anti-smoking bandwagon due to their own objections to the smell of smoke or whatever. They were easily swayed when the tobacco-nazis starting pushing the "second hand smoke" propaganda too.....
Alcohol will be next tho but it will be tougher due to all the alcoholics in Washington and the state legislatures..........
MADD will have an impact on future anti-alcohol legislation but only after Kennedy has died and gone to hell.
The tax increase however makes a lot of sense. As price increases, demand decreases. Econ 101. The reality is 90% of all smokers started as teenagers.
Given the fact that the vast majority of children don't smoke
True but as noted above adults don't smoke. Teenagers smoke and then become adults after it’s way too late to quit. Reducing teenage smoking is a valid goal and I support it. Every conservative should support it.
Tobacco taxes are like the state lotteries, largely taxes on the least affluent portion of the population.
Bingo we have a winner. They could care less about our health it about the money and when the revenues decline they will try to figure out what else to tax out of existence.
” to tax potato chips and Big Macs? “
Not a bad idea. Gov. Patterson of NY was going to do the same and was roundly ridiculed.
That kind of tax would have a DIRECT, IMMEDIATE benefit for the little darlins.
QUIT DRINKING!?!? What’s the point?
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