Posted on 08/10/2005 8:27:03 PM PDT by Incorrigible
Okay. Then my view is that Hostess and McDonald's should do the same for fat people and their related illnesses.
How bout Smith and Wesson doing the same for anyone disabled with a gun?
Or Harley Davidson doing the same for someone in a motor cycle wreck, or Ford for someone who doesn't wear their seat belt, or . . .
I hope you get my point. We ALL do things that endanger our health, and many of those things have lasting consequences. Athletes pay physically in their later years, coal miners have health related problems, hell, tellers are notorious for getting carpal tunnel. Should banks set up a special fund for that?
I know, I know, smokers are especially evil and burdensome. I'm so tired of this same old racket.
Actually, I fully agree with this. As a smoker, I have paid the government and insurance companies thousands of dollars that other citizens are not required to pay.
If this was for an established smoker's insurance program, then this money would have been wisely invested. Smoker's health costs would be self-funded and available to them when needed.
Instead, smokers have been forced to pay thousands of dollars, which they will never see returned. When they do need health insurance, it will be denied them.
This is a criminal action directed against 25 percent of the American population.
So far you have about $25,000 invested. That won't get you far in today's system. I have been smoking over fifty years but only about a pack a day. I don't how much I have paid in taxes but I know the government ripped it off like they do everything else.
What? Government politicians used ear-marked extortion money for something other than they promised?
SHOCKED! I'm shocked I say!
How do we continue to let these pinheads get away with this crap? Oh yeah, the average voter (forget the idiots that thankfully don't vote) is a moron.
I am interested in hearing how you came up with such a low number.
Consider that the average cost of a pack of cigarettes is around $1.00, but because of "health related taxes" is priced at $3.50, then we are looking at around $2.50 being confiscated by the Government for your health.
Multiply $2.50 per pack in taxes, 3 packs a day, 365 days in a year, and 30 years of smoking.
The total is.....
$82,125
I know, the $2.50 is in today's dollars, but consider it as inflation adjusted.
$82 THOUSAND dollars in tobacco taxes alone. Do I need to get into all of the extra dollars that the health insurance programs are changing?
Cigarette tax is like mother's milk to these politicians.
They don't want sales of cigarettes to decline..not really.
Cigarette tax, social security, gas tax etc etc..all going to support high govt salaries, big retirements and screw the taxpayer.
I am reminded that Cromwell hung most of the politicians who betrayed them..maybe we should do the same.
When I need that health care, which I have already paid for, and my medical is denied, I will personally hunt down the politicians that are responsible for stealing my money over the years.
Remember, when that time comes, I will only have 3 months to live...
Wise politicians would create a smoker's health insurance plan that is self-funded from the tobacco taxes.
my taxes were increased by $821 per year for tobacco related health costs.
and didn't remember it correctly. I thought that was what you were saying was your annual tax cost on cigs. That times 30 was how I figured.
If my memory serves, Several of Ernest Hemingway novels mention the fact that it is well known that cigarettes are bad for your health. These novels were written in the 20's and 30's. I don't know the easiest way to search this out. The idea that the tobacco companies kept it a secret is total hogwash. What the tobacco companies did was common practice in all commercial speech. That is you point out the good things about your product and you don't mention any negative aspects of your product. That is just simple marketing savvy. Anyone who claims they were purposely lying just doesn't understand commercial speech.
However, you got my point.
The tobacco consumer pays extra for: Health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, and homeowners insurance. We also pick up the tab for the "settlement", along with all the taxes on a pack of smokes.
We would end up paying for an additional insurance program.
ENOUGH!
Just imagine a world without cigarettes. If you weigh 400 pounds and DIE, there would be no cigarettes to blame. If you work with carcinogenic dusts, chemicals, or fumes in your workplace and happen to have cancer, the cigarettes would not be blamed.
The parents of toddlers with leukemia would have to look for a different boogeyman.
If you fall off a damn bridge what would they blame if not the cigarette in your hand?
WOW! Doctors would have to start learning jack squat about their patients and practicing real medicine again!
Is this all tobacco nazi crap science or is it just an excuse to get rid of something some people don't particularly like?
Something safer for police to do (take cigarettes away from grandmas in a bingo parlor) rather than pursue criminals who might be making methamphetamine, who just might get violent?
And before anyone tries to palm off the "secondhand smoke" study as science, forget it. It is a computer model, not hard data. It has no basis in fact.
For the anti-smoker, go ahead, ban them allready. Get it over with, let your tax coffers go COLD TURKEY right along with the rest of us. Don't have the moral fortitude for that, do you?, just enough to treat us worse than Jim Crow Negroes and act condescending. (Negroes under Jim Crow at least had their own section at restaurants, bars, and the back of the bus.) But we smokers are just nicotine niggers, not real human beings, right?
For the consumer of tobacco:
You want to smoke?
There are only a half-million or so people in North Dakota, move here and we'll elect a tobacco friendly government. Yep, the weather sucks, it is either too cold or too hot. There are no really outstandingly splenid scenic areas the Government does not own allready, so we won't get overrun with Hollywood types and so many whiny tourists we can't keep it that way. We might have to give Fargo to Minnesota, but that would cut the state's crime (and budget!) nearly in half anyway.
I was one of the people who supported the idea of a no smoking SECTION so non-smokers would not have to be inconvenienced by me having a cigarette, and look where that went. I have learned my lesson. NEVER AGAIN! NOT ANOTHER INCH.
Like you, I never had a problem with smoking and non-smoking sections. We, as smokers, were considerate and respected the choices of non-smokers to have their own isolated territory. But that was not good enough.
Today, I am sick and tired of being treated like a nigger. Yes, I used that word for a very valid reason.
When you are the person being treated like a nigger, how dare the politically correct police censor our choice of words, when we are simply trying to express an outrage about being treated as the scum in America.
Have we not learned anything since the 1960's?
I have drawn my line in the sand.
When the time was right, Blacks Americans refused to be segregated to the back of the bus. The vast majority of White Americans understood how wrong this was, and stood up with them and made a historical change.
In today's America, smokers are not even allowed on the bus!
Like you, I never had a problem with smoking and non-smoking sections. We, as smokers, were considerate and respected the choices of non-smokers to have their own isolated territory. But that was not good enough.
Today, I am sick and tired of being treated like a nigger. Yes, I used that word for a very valid reason.
When you are the person being treated like a nigger, how dare the politically correct police censor our choice of words, when we are simply trying to express an outrage about being treated as the scum in America.
Have we not learned anything since the 1960's?
I have drawn my line in the sand.
When the time was right, Blacks Americans refused to be segregated to the back of the bus. The vast majority of White Americans understood how wrong this was, and stood up with them and made a historical change.
In today's America, smokers are not even allowed on the bus!
Thanks for the ping!!!!!!!
I need more coffee to digest this :)
This settlement was never about getting people to stop smoking. If there were no smokers, there would be no pot of money for the politicians to buy votes with. In Texas, the lawyers, who did practically no work on the lawsuit because the other states had already filed, divided 15 BILLION dollars from the settlement. It did land one crook, Atty. Gen. Morales (D) in jail though, for padding the pockets of greedy lawyer friends who were not even on the case, so it accomplished something.
Politicians see revenue as their money, the original intent is now gone. It just becomes MORE taxation and waste.
You are of course correct.
If you look at recent increases in cigarette taxes you will notice 2 reappearing themes.....they are needed for health care costs and for balancing budgets. the settlement funds, which have all but been depleted in many states, were for health care costs.......and intead of cutting spending they just up a tax paid only by a politically and socially unpopular segment of society.
Wow, his panic is palpable.
The spectre of making an honest living must have pushed him over the edge.
"States struggling with budget problems have shifted potential tobacco control money to pay for rising Medicaid costs and non-health expenditures on highways, schools and other items."
Proving that their case was fraud to begin with. When you can't substantiate a "cost" that cost does not exist.
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.