Posted on 02/14/2004 3:21:54 AM PST by sarcasm
Edited on 05/07/2004 6:47:05 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Gov. Ernie Fletcher must think bigger if he wants an increase in the cigarette tax to be as good for the state's health as he expects it could be for its budget, health advocates warned yesterday.
While smoking opponents said any tax increase is good news, they also said it would take at least a 75-cents-a-pack jump in the price of cigarettes to persuade enough smokers to quit to make a big difference.
(Excerpt) Read more at courier-journal.com ...
Sure, I'll vote for any tax that gores somebody else's ox - just leave ME alone.
Stupid politicians - what's worse, stupid voters.
This governor ought to be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail for having the gumption to stand in public and offer such insane rationale.
Humankind has been smoking some kind of noxious weed since before recorded history -- and they're gonna keep right on doing it.
In fact that's what this idiot governor is counting on -- he wants to tax something that will never go away - provide a revenue stream he can count on !!
If he wants to stop smoking, instead of a tax -- he should propose a bill that outlaws tobacco sales and use in his state.
Besides doesn't he know that a tax on tobacco is just gonna hurt the po' folks in his state ??
But taxation specifically applied to stiffel the legal sale of a product is legal? The nannies have gone insane.
The genie is out of the bottle, don't know if we can ever regain control. The founding fathers enumerated the 18 specific duties of the federal government in the Constitution -- yet, "we the people" have stupidly, and passively, let the scalawags use our own money to bribe us while they grow government like a cancer. To feed that cancer, they're taxing the bejesus out of us.
The anti-smoking crowd says, well the government needs that money to pay the increased health care costs of smoking-related disease.
Instead of raising taxes, the answer is to get the government OUT of the health-care business, change the whole paradigm back to the limited role the government is supposed to be playing in our lives.
To run government, we need a national sales tax, say 15% (for the sake of argument). You buy a $1M in consumer goods, you pay $150,000 in taxes - simple. You buy $10K in consumer goods, you pay $150 -- what in the world is unfair about that ??. The cost of compliance plummets, you can reduce the size of government, especially the damned IRS.
No need to create the facade of taxing corporations, they don't pay any taxes anyway. I paid more federal income tax in 2002 than the whole friggin' CSX railroad. In fact, ANYBODY who paid any taxes paid more than CSX - because they paid NO TAX in 2002, nor the preceding 3 years !!
In 2002, in addition to "normal" business costs -- AOL wrote off an additional $99 Billion (that's a BIG B) in losses. I don't know for a fact, bus I suspect AOL didn't pay any federal income tax in 2002 either. Go check out Enron, MCI and all the other behemoth corps that claimed losses.
It's insane -- we've got to put a lid back on somehow.
Off soapbox, you just stirred my pot :)
"If he wants to stop smoking, instead of a tax -- he should propose a bill that outlaws tobacco sales and use in his state."
Neither of these will work. The final result of such actions will be that the tobacco trade will move into the underground economy, as was the case during the Prohibition ban on alcohol. The Mafia will just LOVE IT!!!!
Tobacco is legal, it should stay that way.
I don't think it should be taxed either.
I don't use, but I don't care if others kill themselves using it.
If we take a long term view, even under the present system, even though the government may choose to subsidize some short-term healthcare costs for these folks, in reality they're gonna die young and save the taxpayer money overall.
Barkley and other lobbyists said research shows that for every 10percent increase in the price of cigarettes, the number of adult smokers goes down 2percent, and teen smoking drops 6percent to 7percent.
Are these people EVER going to stop lying??????
Barkley is probably bucking for another raise...........
Car Accidents (alcohol)110,000/year
Socialism 11,112,212 /year (average)
No need to make Corp's go through all that compliance BS and government bureaucracy.
I've been a salaried, working stiff all my life (not too smart).
A High School friend of mine went into business. After 20 years, was grossing about $12-14M a year. His corp bought him cars, airplanes, etc. The corp rarely made much money, if any -- paid less income tax than me.
The corp paid him a small salary, not much tax on that.
Lived on a "farm" -- "farm" was also a business. Leased about half of it to a farmer who grew soy beans on it -- the other half was in some kind of a soil bank, government paid him NOT to grow anything on it.
He was living large, paying a lot less tax thatn I did -- boy, am I stupid or what ??
Here in Pittsburgh, Marlboros are going for $4.40 a pack.
But it bears repeating, again and again. :-}
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