Maine:Cigarette tax shortfall burning hole in budget

Villiage Soup ^ | 9-20-07 | Victoria Wallack

[SheLion]

Can we start screaming now???!!!

The dirty crud running the great state of Maine can NOT have this both ways.  They scream they want a TOBACCO FREE MAINE, but when people do quit or go elsewhere for cheaper cigarettes, now the filthy Maine lawmakers are scratching their heads wondering "Where or where has our cigarette taxes gone?"

Can we really believe this crap?????

The state screams they want us to live in a smoke free state, now they are crying the blues because they have no money left from smokers tax dollars to start up more little pet programs.

They all make me sick!

[SheLion]

Let's all have a good laugh OR a good cry!

How STUPID do they think we are?!

[Da Coyote]

Ah, libs in action. One will never go broke underestimating their inability to do anything correctly.

Liberalism - er progressivism - is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you’re gonna get, but you’re sture it’ll be mega-stupid.

[2banana]

Not to mention the black market of cigarettes which is booming....

[NonValueAdded]

LOL And Mass. is bemoaning a lottery shortfall. Seems the lawmakers jacked up the anticipated revenue number to cover a lot of spending. Of course, without a sound basis, the revenue goal was not hit, just as the lottery staff predicted.

Now look at that SCHIP (or is it T?) plan based on 65 cents a pack. I wonder if the revenue projection is based on a constant smoking rate, not taking into account that at some point the cost will force more and more to quit? Doesn't matter, the real plan is to get the entitlement on the books and sucking at the gubermint teat.

[50sDad]

Democrats operate in a magic kingdom where to increase income you just raise taxes.

Republicans (should) realize that if you raise taxes on a non-essential, the demand curve shifts as some people just decide it is too expensive a bad habit.

[RC2]

We’ll find out when they raise the tax on milk to cover their spending habits. Anyone could have figured out that the smoke tax wouldn’t last. Dumb politicians don’t last either. That’s why we need to get rid of some of these guys.

[rlmorel]

It’s called killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

For liberals, history begins 5 minutes ago, so they would have no idea of what I mean by this.

[Cobra64]

Guess they never heard of the black market either. Montreal taxed the hell out of cigs in the early 1990s when I was up there on business. Demand was met by U.S. supply.

[AU72]

But they claimed that the government would save tons of money with a more healthy population not smoking!

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Killing the golden goose! Looking at their formula and projections here, it appears that the idiots never heard about the law of diminishing returns.

[em2vn]

I smell a great black market in the making. Maybe the Kennedys can make a second fortune by smuggling cigarettes into the U.S. from Canada like Joe did with liquor during prohibition.

[ichabod1]

So everybody else will have to pitch in to fill the hole the smokers won’t fill. Budgets never go down.

[pissant]

Thank God for the Indians. I hope every Maine smoker is gettign their cigs from them and depriving the idiots in charge of their confiscatory taxes.

[N3WBI3]

Lets not forget these taxes were supposed to offset the ‘cost to society’ for smoking.. Well if fewer are smoking then those cost should go down..

[Old North State]

This is right up there with the NYT lamenting that the prison population was rising as crime was going down.

[geezerwheezer]

It seems as though the Maine tax authorities had an extra cup of stupid to drink along with their tax poison. Those dudes are posers only. What a pantload of idiocy.

[TomGuy]

And Congress is now wanting to fund child health insurance with additional cigarette taxes for Washington DC.

The governments at various levels have about drained tobacco of the taxes they can get. There is such a thing as the Law of Diminishing Returns. They have about taxed tobacco into that realm.

Not to worry, governments are good at finding new sources/subject to tax.

[goldstategop]

Liberals are stupid. They want to eradicate smoking and at the same time they want smokers to pay through the nose for their expensive entitlement programs. Instead, they're discovering the results of their contradictory policies: budget deficits.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[spyone]

I’ve got a good idea. Let’s raise the tax more to cover this shortfall.