Posted on 06/29/2009 11:23:09 AM PDT by mission9
The following letter (unedited) is endorsed to FreeRepublic on behalf of the cigar workers displaced on the occasion of the closing of the next to the last Cigar Factory in Tampa, Florida. Detroit is losing the Auto Industry, as South Carolina is losing textiles, across the nation, the job loss due to over-regulation and taxes accelerates.
To Our Elected Officials:
Despite repeated assertions on what the true affects of SCHIP and further increases of taxes on tabacco would be, your short-sightedness has eliminated not only a 100+ year old Tampa business but in the process have cost hundreds of Amercians their livelihood. Your insistence on singling out one small group of taxpayers to carry the enormous burden of heath case for an extremely large group of people has not only decreased the revenue by the millions of dollars that our former employer Hav-A-Tampa/AltadisUSA paid in taxes each year, but have in turn increased the burden on the states unemployment compensation, increased the prospects of even more homes going into foreclosure, and created hopelessness and despair. We, the proud employees of Hav-A-Tampa, ask you, our elected officials, those who we have entrusted to make sound decisions and guard over our well being, to protect our ability to support and provide for our families. What safeguards did you put in place in case the worst case scenario came into being? Besides unemployment compensation, we ask you: What are you going to do to help us ensure we still have our homes and food on our tables? When a business closes due to competition from others in the same market, it is understandable. When the government is directly responsible for the loss of hundreds of jobs, especially at a time when the economy is in a recession, there is a responsibility to insure that the people affected by such actions are not thrown into a situation that leaves them unable to meet the basic necessities of life. Sadly, we all believe all this could have been avoided and hundreds of people would still have jobs if you had the foresight to level a tax on an item such as 5c per roll of toilet paper, an item that private citizens and businesses alike would have paid to found SCHIP without creating hardship and unemployment for anyone.
Ronald Russell, Cigar Industry Artisan
I really do believe that things like this are the desired result of SCHIP and other tobacco legislation. Not many people to stand up for smokers rights anymore...
Sad
This is not about tobacco as much as it is about the right of a man to have an honest living in a traditional industry. If they were just attacking this one industry, it could be about tobacco. They are going after all industries in favor of the state.
Not even Fidel Castro would do such a thing to the cigar workers.
I wonder what the percentage of smokers that voted voted for Obama.
Obama is a smoker and a known (past) drug user. The dominant question from bloggers on his first internet town hall in office was: “when are you going to legalize dope?”
Obama has the charisma to tell his fondest supporters to shelve their fondest dreams, and they like it.
will I have to start making my own brew?...under the table,like bootleggers?
And most of them will vote for him again. Change you can live with,,,,SUCKA
If this had been a union shop, Obama would protected them in someway.
Obama wants all non-union shops to go away.
“They are going after all industries in favor of the state.”
They are bailing out union industries and letting family businesses wither and die.
Tell that to all the former auto workers who are watching Oprah now.
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