Congress Looks for a Major Cigarette Tax Increase
Before I get to my post I would like to take a minute to introduce myself. My name is Steve, I go by the alias of mpinkeyes, and I have a blog called Wake Up America. I am a conservative and am hoping to contribute to Political Grind on a regular basis to help spread the conservative message. I would like to take this time to thank Political Grind for adding me as a member and I hope to live up to what has come to be expected here.
So here we go, I thought I would make my first post about taxes:
The Democrat congress is now attempting to pass a tax increase that will disproportionately affect the poor. I am talking about a significant increase on the federal tax on cigarettes.
House and Senate negotiators are trying to craft a veto-proof version of the bill. President Bush says he would veto it because it calls for a 61 cents-per-pack increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes, taking it to $1.
What smokers will be hurt the most by this tax? Poor smokers of course. The group liberal Democrats are supposedly trying to help. Do you think Sean Penn will be affected by this tax? I don’t think so. The average American smoker will also be hurt by this. I am so sick and tired of Democrats trying to say they represent the middle class only to raise our taxes. While the cigarette tax doesn’t affect me, as a non-smoker, except for an occasional cigar, once the doorway to taxes is open, more are sure to follow. Remember the bridge collapse and how liberals used that as an excuse to raise gas taxes? Who does that affect the most? Middle class and poor, that’s who. These people are frauds.
We need to stand up against this taxation now before it is too late. Currently the president has the votes so that his veto of this tax increase will not be over-ridden, but how long will that last. This is a sign of what’s to come if in the 2008 election we send a Democrat to the white-house with a larger majority than they already have.
A new Democrat president may start with a politically correct tax like a cigarette tax, but they won’t stop there. You can guarantee an increase in the gas tax next. Then what follows will be anyone’s guess. I’m sure alcohol will face taxation, hell we will be taxed for the air we breathe in order to stop global warming. Remember this when you go to the polls next year. Think about this before you pull that lever. For if you do not, remember you have been warned.
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While I do not smoke, this tax would not directly affect me…. on the other hand, if there was an alcohol tax, I would not be happy. I think this could benefit poor smokers, by forcing them to quit hurting themselves and they would be able to allocate money elsewhere.
…and welcome to PG, the first post of the new members.
First off, welcome Steve to the PG community. Increasing the costs of cigarettes has been shown to be an effective way to decrease smoking rates. Smoking has been directly linked to more chronic diseases than I care to list and decreasing smoking rates may help decrease strain on our health care system. Although the tax increases may hurt certain populations in the short term it may benefit those same people in the long run. If they are effectively unable to smoke because of the monetary costs they will have more money to spend on necessities along with potentially lower long term health care costs. Of course, cigarette taxes are not the solution to all of our ills. Attaching SCHIP to cigarette taxes was a poor decision and was intelligently vetoed by Bush (whoa, did i just call Bush intelligent?). However, raising smoking taxes are going to cut smoking rates in the long term and that will decrease health care costs and improve the lives of many Americans, which is a good thing. Then, all we'll have to worry about is the obesity situation. If only Registered Dieticians were reimbursed for more conditions and disease states. One day…
Oh, and I highly recommend The Rest of the Story (http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com) for tobacco news and analysis. The blog is run by Dr. Michael Siegel who helped spear head the campaign to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. His commentary is insightful, intellegent, and he is a great professor (Go Terriers!). Check it out.
Looks like ID parsed the URL incorrectly with the ')' Here is the correct link: http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/ Great blog by the way.
Looks like ID parsed the URL incorrectly with the ')' Here is the correct link: http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/ Great blog by the way.
Aaron - Dr. Siegel has many good reasons for banning smoking, but he is still a tyrant, and his attack on private property rights makes him a threat to our health in the long run. I despise people who trample over freedoms for our own good. The problem with using tobacco taxes to fund pet projects (the most sinister being health coverage by government) is that if the high price of tobacco products do cut down on the rates of smokers - who's going to fund the government program? They are not going to shut it down. Do you see what they're doing? They get the program started by appealing to prejudice against some nasty habit, and then raise all of our taxes to pay for a program that can't be funded fully by the decreasing tobacco tax revenue! I don't smoke. I hate cigarette smoke. But I detest health bullies that lie to us about second hand smoke being anything other than annoying, and that includes the good doctor mentioned above. Look around people - they are circumscribing our freedoms in the guise of health. I'd rather live until I'm 75 and be able to live my own life than live until I'm 100 and be directed like a child by my government! Welcome Pinkeyes! It's good to see another bright mind hanging out at PG!
Great first post and topic
My concern is what happens when people stop smoking. No more tax revenue. What do they go after next? Water? Coffee? Air? The issue is not what is being taxed but rather the very fact anything is. We cannot hope to lower taxes overall if more of them keep being introduced and raised. The best approach is no new taxes because at some point the government will tax you.
Evrviglt….did you even read what Dr. Siegel had to say about second hand smoke? He absolutely admonished the claims that related short term 2nd hand smoke to long term health problems. Not to mention, Dr. Siegel never mentioned funding pet projects through tobacco taxes and in fact is seriously againt funding long term and important public projects with tobacco taxes. In addition, Dr. Siegel whole heartedly is againt a smoking ban if the employees in a given establishment have a legitemate choice and knowledge regarding the ramifications of second hand smoke. Your comment is absolutely unsubstantiated. Dr. Siegel is absolutely for freedom of choice. My opinion, not his, is that which is in support of a cigarette tax. Also, Dr. Siegel spoke out against the attachment of SCHIP with the cigarette tax. Before you condem someone please take the time to read and comprehend what they have to say rather than reading the first sentence of multi colored text. I have respect for you, but this past comment is uneducated, and not that of an erudite.
You're right, Simmons - I didn't follow your link. I took it for granted that an anti-smoking activist would both believe in the hysteria of second hand smoke and then use that to compel regulation. What a pleasant surprise to find that the 'good' doctor at least demands the same standards from his zealous comrades as he does from the evil tobacco companies. He says: "I have woken up today to a true nightmare — the Wall Street Journal revealing that anti-smoking groups admit to knowingly deceiving the public in order to promote their policy goals. While I always expected to read such revelations about the tobacco companies, I never expected to read the same thing about groups to which I have devoted years of my life in the service of providing sound scientific information to ensure that our communications to the public are honest, accurate, and dependable. And to add insult to injury, the anti-smoking movement is now aware of this and they are defending it. There seems to be no hope that they will take note of the inappropriate actions and correct them in the future. I never received a membership card when I joined the anti-smoking movement, but if I had, today is the day I'd be sending it back. These are not the ethical standards with which I would like to be associated." I commend him, and will temporarily take him off of my list of brown shirts that are working overtime to infantilize us…
I meant to address the last comment to Aaron! Time for bed!
Hi everybody and thanks for the welcome. Aaron, my problem with the argument that the government should tax cigarettes to dissuade people from smoking is the fact that the government shouldn't be involved in this type of regulation. People shouldn't need or want their government protecting them from themselves. Besides, the government doesn't want to dissuade smokers, they want to raise the taxes as high as they can without losing sokers. If they lose smokers the money will dry up and as Chris, the money will have to come from somewhere.
The slippery slope argument is sometimes fallacious. I think that the connection between new taxes and higher overall tax burdens is a bit weak. Sometimes what happens is more accurately termed an 'innovative tax structure'. This is particularly common when local and regional governments (like cities and states) set their taxes independently. The variances between them can be analyzed and the best systems adopted. On the other hand, this only applies to smaller levels of government. On the federal level it's harder to justify unusual taxes because the government is simply too big and hard to compare with other governments. So in this case the slippery slope argument you're proposing may be accurate. There's a condition where it is stronger though. The slippery slope argument is also accurate whenever the new taxes are tied to existent or new programs instead of general revenue. The disincentives created by the tax will likely weaken gradually the funding of those programs, requiring new taxes or weakening of the program. Those are the conditions when this particular slippery slope is logically sound. I believe that Evrviglnt points this out in one of his earlier comments on this post.