this tax punishes only one group, smokers, and is designed to force them to stop smoking.<<<<<<<<
It does punish one group, but I think it is clear that the last thing they want is for smokers to quit smoking. They just say that, it's kinda like the "for the children" argument. What they want is the $$$$$$$.
[State Rep. Jon] Draud said raising the tax would also discourage young people from starting to smoke.
Read the full text of the article at the link above...
This is the same logic Fletcher is using. Well, at some point, this tax hike will cut the revenue that it is supposed to raise. The law of dminishing returns. The higher the tax, the less revenue you get. There has to be a balance and these radical tax hikes, by Republicans like Draud and Fletcher, are not the solution.
Why produce a crop and make it harder to sell and criminalize once non-criminal behavior, while creating a booming black market?
If we follow this logic, how about taxing fat people $1.00 per pound and force them to lose wait. You know, weigh them in once a quarter, or month, or maybe a year and for every pound of their optimum weight tax them $1.00. For those under their optimum weight, let's give them a $1.00 per pound government hand-out, so they can gain weight? Both these ideas are absurd, the radical tobacco tax and the 'weight' tax. Remember: Senator Bunning from Kentucky suggesting to Billary during the National Healthcare debate (Hillary's congressional testimony) that we should tax beef, to force people to lower their cholesterol? That was great sarcasm from Senator Bunning, and shows the absurdity of all these do-gooders, like Draud and Fletcher, who are pushing for these ridiculouly high taxes on tobacco and alcohol.