Posted on 09/25/2013 11:56:35 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
President Obama’s plan to raise the federal cigarette tax by 94 cents a pack would put 2 million low and middle-income kids through preschool, a new report has concluded.
Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal calls for a near doubling of the tax, from $1.01 to $1.95 per pack, with the proceeds going toward an expansion of early childhood education. Taxes on other tobacco products would increase proportionally, bringing the estimated additional revenue to an estimated $78 billion over the next decade.
“Taken together, these two measures would help ensure a future of smart, healthy kids nationwide and in every state,” according to the report, released Wednesday by a coalition of nine public health and legal groups.
In the first year alone, almost 335,000 children from low and moderate-income families would gain access to high-quality preschool programs, the study found. By the 10th year, that number would rise to 2 million.
Less than half of the nation’s 4-year-olds are enrolled in public preschool programs, according to the study, which cites research showing that kids with access to early childhood education are more likely to go to college, be employed and live a healthy lifestyle.
At the same time, the groups contend that the higher tax would prevent 1.7 million kids from becoming addicted to cigarettes and, in the first year, prompt 1.57 million adult smokers to quit.
“This report should compel lawmakers to support the president’s proposal because it demonstrates the dramatic educational and health benefits children in every state would receive,” said Chris Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN).
But conservatives have criticized Obama’s plan, saying it amounts to a tax on middle-class Americans.
Formerly a smoker himself, Obama was overheard this week saying that he hadn’t had a cigarette in six years, citing health-conscious first lady Michelle Obama as the impetus for his quitting.
The black market on Cigs is coming soon and the new Mafia will be born.
I stopped smoking years ago, but I hope they come after your kids or grandchildren with all kinds of taxes. Maybe they're too fat. Maybe they play contact sports at school and are more of a risk to your obamacare exchange. I don't really care how they do it. Just don't come looking to current or former smokers for help when it's your turn.
Our daughter absolutely LOVED her all day kindergarten and would have preferred more reading time and less time on the playground or in the gym. She played soccer at the time, then went onto baseball and softball, street hockey and dance.
I was freaked out about the all day kindergarten, but my mother considered me lucky because she would have given anything for all day kindergarten when I started in 1965. Of course 2 years later she refused to put my brother in kindergarten because she wasn't ready for him to leave her. Not because HE wasn't ready for school, but because SHE wasn't ready for him to be in school. When he was 21 and accepted into the Police Academy she called me and demanded I come home (I lived in another state by then) to side with her and talk him out of it. It was Christmas and was going back anyway and she did everything but throw me out to make my stay miserable because I congratulated him and wished him good luck.
BTW, that all day kindergartener of mine is now in 10th grade, remains on the Honor Roll (usually with straight A's,) loves her dance, hunts with her dad and works the gardens with me. While I do believe kindergarten, full or half day, should be up to the parents and not the government, I totally disagree with your attitude it is a waste of time and a hindrance.
You are behind the times, by about a decade. There has been a black market for low or no taxed cigarettes for seemingly forever.
I live in Virginia, just 8 miles from the Maryland line, and see the out of state license plates in the tobacco outlets every day. For every Virginia plate in the parking llot there will be at least 10 from Maryland, and another dozen or so from NY, PA and NJ.
Back in the 60s worked in an Ohio auto plant, the parking lot always had guys selling low tax Kentucky cigs out of their car trunks. And this was when the difference was literally pennies per pack.
Not surprising!
You’re right. It should be up to the parents. All children are different. I do not think there is added benefit to all day kindergarten other than the convenience for parents and school transportation departments.
Exactly.
I do not think there is added benefit to all day kindergarten other than the convenience for parents and school transportation departments.
You just contradicted your previous statement. As you said, all children are different and my child did benefit from it, as I have already stated. Not all do or did, and that is obvious, but the ones who have parent(s) who looked it as a convenience are the ones that did not benefit - but they are also the ones who wouldn't benefit from the highest priced private education, either.
And the companies that actually produce the product sell it for what? $0.25 per pack?
What do you think we should do about these State and federal government programs and Leftists that are addicted to revenue from cigarette taxes?
Have you meet your weekly quota of recruiting new, under-age, addicts yet?
"Government agents acting without authorization conducted dozens of undercover investigations of illegal tobacco sales, misused some of $162 million in profits from the stings and lost track of at least 420 million cigarettes, the Justice Department's inspector general said Wednesday.
In one case, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sold $15 million in cigarettes and later turned over $4.9 million in profits from the sales to a confidential informant — even though the agency did not properly account for the transaction."
I pay $0.40 /pack retail where I am.
I used to have my cigarettes delivered by the USPS from an online Indian store every month. They made that illegal so I quit. My costs would have doubled.
The Czar and his team of fancy-pants advisors realize that his jolly Muziks are always plastered and this could damage the war effort.
So, brilliant Czar that he was, he put a heavy, like very heavy, tax on Vodka. Unfortunately, talk about unintended consequences, it turned out that this was the government's (such as it was) major (read only) source of real revenue. No body could afford the taxed vodka, but they could sure slip over to Igor's still and buy some bootleg hooch, of which the Czar saw nary a ruble.
The rest, as Professor Peabody was wont to say to young Sherman, "was history." So if the nicotine fiends buy fewer and fewer cigarettes, where's the money for research and "the children" supposed to come from?
"Hey can I buy cigarettes with my EBT Card?"
We all agree this shouldn’t be available to children. Just adults.
I don’t understand what you are babbling about.
Sorry, I thought this was the e-cigarette thread that you posted some other nonsense on. Sales of Real cigarettes have been banned to children for decades.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.