Posted on 02/08/2009 11:49:17 AM PST by nateriver
It took only 16 days for President Obama to break his campaign promise not to raise taxes on the poor. When President Obama signed the SCHIP bill, increasing the excise tax on Tobacco products by 156%, he raise taxes on 55% of smokers who are the “working poor” and the 25% of smokers who live below the poverty line. This bill is to provide health care to many of these smokers’ children. If he cared about the health of these children, the purpose of the cigarette tax would be to deter smoking because many children from homes of smokers require expensive medical care for respiratory symptoms. How is President Obama going to pay for a program when the source for funding the program will dwindle by design? How many days till President Obama breaks another campaign promise?
Glenn Beck showed a clip where Obama, in one breath, talked about the stimulus bill having X amount of dollars for Smoking Cessation Programs, and then in the next breath, talked about how funding for the SCHIP would be on the backs of smokers. What an idiot. Beck said it would take millions and millions of NEW smokers just to fund the program!!
Frankly, Obama’s stupidity aside, I’m sick to death of EVERYTHING being funded on the backs of smokers. It’s about time we taxed ALCOHOL...heavily. What doesn’t get paid for by drinkers could be paid by taxes collected on toilet paper or sugar products....something EVERY ONE uses.
Just like animal farm, non-smokers are “more equal” then smokers or any other group that is dis-approved of by the state.
I’ve about had it up to here with the “smokers live under bridges and have the intelligence of (maybe) a smart dog” meme, myself.
It may take the accuracy of an atomic clock to time the breaks and track them by the nanosecond.
*ducking and running for cover*
What devastating wit.
Need to tax a whole lot more idiots who put themselves and the nation at risk....like WELFARE moms....and dads...
Half of it, anyway...
From a liberal point of view, I’m pretty sure this tax isn’t a tax. So this sort of tax can be hiked up on the poor, without ever increasing the taxes that the poor have to pay. Yeah, it makes no sense. But this is how Liberals sleep at night.
And a side note: When you tax the rich, you are also taxing the poor.
Ah, don't you know how to spin? The tax hike is just the stimulus necessary to get poor smokers to quit thereby improving the health of their children. That SCHITP will require an additional 22 million smokers to break even is irreverent. :P
Funny you should mention that! Naval Observatory Will Also Track Government Spending
I agree with this statement, not from an capitalist's point of view, but from the fact that alcohol is such a heavy financial and otherwise burden on society, because of the destruction caused by it's users.
Case and point, someone I painted a house for lives next to a golf course that hosts parties for drunk sobs who do things like hit golf balls at the house and run the golf carts into flower beds. Some may say this is not capitalism to issue a sin tax(I know my main man Rush Limbaugh is one of them), but then again Adam Smith argued that capitalism only works when good morals are applied to the situation. So I don't have a problem with sin taxes within reason.
But, and a big but here, what exactly government does with that money is, in my mind, very suspect, so I still see a problem with the egregious expansion of government along with the increasing control of the Police State that causes such as the War on Drugs creates. If they use this money to go after and punish(yes PUNISH, not REHABILITATE) the thugs and deadbeats who commit crimes under the influence, I would be all for it. So in turn, legalize, but polarize the drug and alchy usage.
Yeah, the lotteries are to fund education, the sin taxes are to fund children’s health insurance. It’s a shell game, though. Education funding remains the same, they simply reduce education funding from general revenues by the amount the lottery takes in, and keep using general revenue funds to put the chandeliers and gold plated doorknobs in their offices. I don’t think a sin tax has ever actually resulted in actual children’s health insurance. They continue to simply require hospitals to treat people without insurance for free, spreading the cost of treating them among the various constituencies that will pay.
It’s just more socialism on top of socialism, which drives the price of everything up sky high, btw(tuition). We need less central control and more local control on these issues. Let the counties and cities be in charge of the taxation and let them reap the benefits. The people in those areas will have more power in directing the funds. Then they can build their own schools and jail their own criminals. It’s none of the feds business to get involved with this stuff. I love history and wish we would bring back the tax riots. It used to be in America every time something was taxed, there was a riot, because Americans use to understand the principle that the power to tax is the power to kill. Oh, the long forgotten good ole days.
:-)
Yeah? Well a whole lot of Freeper’s would have supported this tax increase on smokers if bambi wasn’t the one behind it.
Just wait, they will come for you too. We been trying to warn you.
Bunch of hypocrites.
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