Posted on 01/20/2007 1:19:51 PM PST by sh0tgun willie
Jane Gravelle: After the Clinton administration proposed a fairly substantial increase in the cigarette tax as a way of funding health care reform, my colleague Dennis Zimmerman and I wrote a paper entitled "Cigarette Taxes to Fund Health Care Reform and Economic Analysis."* The part of the paper I'd like to talk about is the justifications for increasing the cigarette tax. I'm an economist, so I start with the presumptions that people have subjective preferences about what they like to do and how they spend their money and that, in general, we want to allow people to enjoy their lifetime resources in accord with those preferences. We would intervene in those decisions only under certain kinds of circumstances that we try to delineate and measure.
(Excerpt) Read more at cato.org ...
In most cases, it is wherever a smoker might be. I think they follow smokers around so they can complain.
These people are out of control and being aided and abetted by so many on this website that it is absolutely sickening to me.
I don't THINK they do it, I KNOW they do it. Most especially as it is evidenced on any thread here that deals with any aspect of tobacco.
Same crowd that sees nothing wrong with mandating the use of seat belts in an automobile.
Do smokers have rights? We used to and for a long long time!! Now, since Big Tobacco fell to their knees in front of the Attorney Generals, our smoking rights are chipping away.
And to top it off, smokers tax dollars are being used against us for all the bans, control and restrictions against us.
ARE WE MAD YET????
True, but the Gore's were hypocritical about their source of wealth.
Let me guess, you were minding your own business when suddenly you found yourself in a local pub where some brute with a Merit Light assaulted you. Question:
I meant that with my comment. Hard to show that in text.
Actually the Republicans have deployed their own emotional issues for years. In the last two elections, especially in 2004, they used the gay marriage issue (handed to them on a silver platter by gay activists who sued for the right to marry). In Kentucky, for example, Republicans put an anti-gay marriage amendment on the ballot in 2004. The local megachurch in Louisville (Southeast Christian, with 17,000 members) ran billboards all over town saying "God's plan for marriage -- one man, one woman," and they had a three-sermon series in October on marriage. All of this paid off nicely, in that a very close Senate race went Republican (Jim Bunning defeated a tough Democratic challenger by 1%).
Thanks for the ping, Gabz.
And as some of you know, I keep a list of the ANTI-SMOKERS we have right here on our own Free Republic. The verbal abuse we have received over the past few years from people in Free Republic that are supposed to be our own kind has gone way over the top! So nasty and hate filled, that I feel like I have fallen into DU Hell!
The list I keep is as long as my arm, I am sad to say. If anyone wants to see this list, just FReep mail me. I will be more then happy to let you all know just WHO we have in Free Republic that hates us just because we smoke.
No wonder our party has fallen apart. When one conservative can bash and trash another Conservative just because we choose to use a legal commodity, well...................I will say no more.
And when they're outside and happen to pass a smoker 20 feet away, they still manage a stifled cough.
I have a better question. Does the state have the authority to tax specific groups of people based on behavior?
You're confusing conservatives with statists.
I agree with you. I wear my seatbelt when driving, that's how I was taught, but I do not support mandatory seatbelt legislation.
Do you have a list of the non-smokers who support EVERYONES RIGHT to do what they want to within the law? I'd better be on the top of that list, LOL!
I've taken a lot of sh*t from the same people that harass Freeper smokers. It's unbelievable how they REFUSE to see what's coming right at them: the loss of THEIR rights in other areas of their lives!
The number of Koolaid drinking pseudo-conservatives we have around here these days is crazy. ;)
SheLion has an Enemy's List!
LMAO
Your alleged "smoke free zone" doesn't extend to my property, does it?
Smokers do not have rights. American citizens do, and until cigarettes become illegal, citizens have a right to smoke in designated places. I don't smoke and I hate the smell of it, but not as much as I hate anti-smoking Nazis.
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