Posted on 10/14/2005 6:34:56 PM PDT by Crackingham
Gov. Matt Blunt has publicly opposed a cigarette tax increase, but some key GOP players are quietly working to make sure voters pass it in November 2006.
The Committee for a Healthy Future, the group promoting the ballot initiative to increase cigarette taxes by 80 cents a pack, has hired John Hancock, a spokesman and consultant for the Missouri Republican Party, as a strategist. Hancock was constantly at the side of Blunt, a Republican, during his 2004 campaign for governor.
The campaign also has hired two other Republicans as consultants: Jewell Patek, a former lawmaker who later served as an aide to Blunt when he was secretary of state, and David Barklage, who served as chief of staff to former state Sen. Peter Kinder, now lieutenant governor.
Blunts spokesmen have been saying since June that the governor is opposed to increasing the cigarette tax or any other tax, even though lawmakers are struggling to find long-term solutions to address health-care needs for the poor and uninsured.
Jack Cardetti, Missouri Democratic Party spokesman, said the involvement of top Republicans in the tax initiative campaign brings into question whether Blunt truly opposes the idea.
If Matt Blunt really wanted to kill this proposal, he could make three phone calls and itd be dead within the month, Cardetti said.
Blunts spokesman, Spence Jackson, said the governor has nothing to do with the contracts Hancock and other Republican consultants take.
Reasonable people often disagree on issues, Jackson said. This is obviously an area of disagreement.
Proponents of the cigarette tax also have hired two well-connected Democrats Steve Glorioso, a Kansas City political strategist who worked on Claire McCaskills campaign for governor, and Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City lawyer who served as Attorney General Jay Nixons chief of staff.
Missouri, which has the third-highest smoking rate in the nation, has the 49th-lowest cigarette tax at 17 cents a pack. Kansas, with a tax of 79 cents per pack, has the 27th-lowest cigarette tax.
The proposed 80-cent tax increase in Missouri would raise an estimated $351 million a year, with $61 million of that going to anti-smoking programs, $100 million to treatment of chronic diseases and smoking-related illnesses among the poor and $190 million to increase Medicaid fees to health-care providers. The Missouri Hospital Association and other health organizations are bankrolling the campaign.
Blunt and the Republican-led legislature this year cut 90,000 people off Medicaid.
The governor, who has been fiercely attacked over the Medicaid cuts, has to know that the cigarette tax would help him politically, Cardetti said.
He wants both the benefit of the added revenue and the benefit of not supporting a tax increase, Cardetti said.
This (Blunts opposition) is extremely disingenuous.
"Smoking cigarettes has been shown to reduce instances of prostate cancer and also keeps irritable bowel syndrome under control (along with other dried leaves of the nightshade family such as tomatoes and eggplant)."
And apparently cocaine and heroin help you lose weight.
But there is a problem is risk versus reward.
Just to be clear I absolutely support the right of aduls to smoke. I am just not upset with taxing cigarettes.
I forgot to mention the benefits lighting up a cigarette and inhaling quickly and deeply has on stemming asthma attacks, but I knew you wouldn't believe me anyway.
"I forgot to mention the benefits lighting up a cigarette and inhaling quickly and deeply has on stemming asthma attacks, but I knew you wouldn't believe me anyway."
I have no problem believing there are benefits - I just think any benefits are dwarfed compared to cigarettes killing one fifth of the country.
"I have no problem believing there are benefits - I just think any benefits are dwarfed compared to cigarettes killing one fifth of the country"
And why do you care what "kills one fith of the country"?
Guess what? Everyone in this country is going to die!!! Someday.
That's what you liberals just don't get. But you want every living, breathing body producing tax revenue for your "godley government" so the money they steal may care for people who WON'T work. Once you find the fresh heifer, you milk, and milk, and milk until you've sucked the production dry. Then you look for another "cow". I call that legal slavery.
Does it not seem strange to you that the government is SO concerned about our health, yet there is no authority granted it in the Constitution?
Besides, cars kill more people than cigarettes per capita. But I don't see the govment suing the auto companies...yet.
I'm sorry that you feel so strongly about smoking that you have to insult me.
To pay for legitimate government functions, some things have to be taxed. I just can't get upset over cigarettes being one of those things considering how much cigarettes cost the country...
"To pay for legitimate government functions, some things have to be taxed. I just can't get upset over cigarettes being one of those things considering how much cigarettes cost the country... "
First, will you please define "legitimate government functions". I do not believe you can. hint: read the Constitution.
Secondly, I did not "insult" you.
Next, please submit, for evidence, "how much cigarettes cost the country" ?
"First, will you please define "legitimate government functions". I do not believe you can. hint: read the Constitution. Secondly, I did not "insult" you. Next, please submit, for evidence, "how much cigarettes cost the country" ?"
2. Yes, you did insult me. You called me a liberal.
1. Rather than quibble about what exactly legitimate function is (since the general welfare clause is hard to pin down) can we stipulate that:
A.The government does have some legitimate functions.
B.That the scope of government activity currently far exceeds any reasonable interpretation of the constitution
C. But not withstanding B that A still needs to be paid for?
3. The cost of cigarettes? I have no idea but the CDC says that cigarettes cause one fifth of all deaths in the U.S. and as I am in the middle of watching a family member die from lung cancer and and I'm familiar with his medical costs. I suspect that the cost of 20% of the country dieing from cigarettes is damned expensive.
Look, I fully support your right to smoke. And I want a smaller, less intrusive government more respectful of individual rights.
But something has to be taxed and cigarettes seem as good as any other choice and better than some.
I did not "insult" you. I stated a fact.
You stand for confiscating assets from those who earned them to distributing said assets to those who need them (as defined by the government) socialism
I do not have to "quibble" the legal function of the federal government...that is in the Constitution.
Where is it written that the feds have jurisdiction over personal health?
A. The government does have some legitimate functions...defined
B.That the scope of government activity currently far exceeds any reasonable interpretation of the constitution...factual
C. But not withstanding B that A still needs to be paid for? NO!!!
A+B is not mutually exclusive. The Constitution does NOT say the federal government can/may engage legal companies or corporations in extortion rackets, be they legal or not, to raise revenue.
I am truly sorry you have to witness a family member succumb to a horrible affliction. But the fact are only 10% of lung cancer deaths are smokers. Yet smokers are being forced to pay for everything the state requests. Why? Because smokers are a minority, they stink, it's a filthy habit, and (best of all), if it is addictive, they will pay ANYTHING to sustain their habit.
Q: Why don't we attack "caffein"?
A: Because they don't have enough money yet?
A2: Because they are invested in CAFTA or NAFTA?
This is exactly why my family, your founding fathers, fought against King George.
Basically, it is not about health, but about money and control. Nes pas?
If you really believe the government does not have the right to raise funds for those legitimate government functions as specified by the constitution then we really have no common ground because article 8 clause 1 clearly says otherwise.
That position is beyond unrealistic - it's anarchist, not conservative.. I hate to use the word anarchist with someone who has been on FreeRepublic so much longer than I but I don't know any other term for opposing all taxation.
BTW, if you really think that everyone who supports any taxation to pay for legitimate government functions is a socialist, you should bear in mind that includes all the founding fathers.
" But the fact are only 10% of lung cancer deaths are smokers"
Come on... that's just silly and you could have easily checked before you posted something so obviously false. In 2001, there were 90,426 U.S. deaths from lung cancer. 81,179 of those. were from smoking. That means 89.77% of lung cancer deaths were from smoking.
http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/statistics.htm http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/research_data/health_consequences/mortali.htm
revenue grab.
...funny who ends up wanting to raise taxes.
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