, a spokesman and consultant for the Missouri Republican Party, as a strategist."I'd wondered what had became of him.
Posted on 10/14/2005 6:34:56 PM PDT by Crackingham
Gov. Matt Blunt has publicly opposed a cigarette tax increase, but some key GOP players are quietly working to make sure voters pass it in November 2006.
The Committee for a Healthy Future, the group promoting the ballot initiative to increase cigarette taxes by 80 cents a pack, has hired John Hancock, a spokesman and consultant for the Missouri Republican Party, as a strategist. Hancock was constantly at the side of Blunt, a Republican, during his 2004 campaign for governor.
The campaign also has hired two other Republicans as consultants: Jewell Patek, a former lawmaker who later served as an aide to Blunt when he was secretary of state, and David Barklage, who served as chief of staff to former state Sen. Peter Kinder, now lieutenant governor.
Blunt’s spokesmen have been saying since June that the governor is opposed to increasing the cigarette tax or any other tax, even though lawmakers are struggling to find long-term solutions to address health-care needs for the poor and uninsured.
Jack Cardetti, Missouri Democratic Party spokesman, said the involvement of top Republicans in the tax initiative campaign brings into question whether Blunt truly opposes the idea.
“If Matt Blunt really wanted to kill this proposal, he could make three phone calls and it’d be dead within the month,” Cardetti said.
Blunt’s spokesman, Spence Jackson, said the governor has nothing to do with the contracts Hancock and other Republican consultants take.
“Reasonable people often disagree on issues,” Jackson said. “This is obviously an area of disagreement.”
Proponents of the cigarette tax also have hired two well-connected Democrats –– Steve Glorioso, a Kansas City political strategist who worked on Claire McCaskill’s campaign for governor, and Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City lawyer who served as Attorney General Jay Nixon’s chief of staff.
Missouri, which has the third-highest smoking rate in the nation, has the 49th-lowest cigarette tax at 17 cents a pack. Kansas, with a tax of 79 cents per pack, has the 27th-lowest cigarette tax.
The proposed 80-cent tax increase in Missouri would raise an estimated $351 million a year, with $61 million of that going to anti-smoking programs, $100 million to treatment of chronic diseases and smoking-related illnesses among the poor and $190 million to increase Medicaid fees to health-care providers. The Missouri Hospital Association and other health organizations are bankrolling the campaign.
Blunt and the Republican-led legislature this year cut 90,000 people off Medicaid.
The governor, who has been fiercely attacked over the Medicaid cuts, has to know that the cigarette tax would help him politically, Cardetti said.
“He wants both the benefit of the added revenue and the benefit of not supporting a tax increase,” Cardetti said.
“This (Blunt’s opposition) is extremely disingenuous.”
FReepmail me to be on, or off, this list,
Supposed to be a low volume ping list.
(sorry folks, seems to be a lot of Missouri news lately)
BS! We already know this would go into the general revenue for pork.
Hit your puff lists folks.
I'm about to fire up the network again and start putting out the newsletter.
PUFF
I can make an argument that , if taxes need to be collected, it makes sense to target those products that cost society (and the government) money.
Like entrance fees for federal parks that are expensive to maintain.
And taxes on cigarettes that cost us a great deal of money for health insurance and lost productivity.
BTW Missouri non smoker. Exactly seven years tomorrow Oct 15th. My son smokes now and this will affect him and his pocketbook. Good, I wish he would quit. I smoked two packs a day for twenty years. The consequences of my action will show up one day in my health. My earlier poor example has showed up in the oldest child. I think of that every time I see him puff.
But the "Nanny's" know what's best.
Even my non-smoking friends voted against it, because they know that once the pols start, they'll find a reason to tax other things that they may enjoy.
Just remember how all that lottery money the state(s) were gonna get and how it was gonna be for "education" and how that would lower your tax bill.
Every one of those states that presented that argument kept the part about lottery revenue going to the education fund, put neglected to actually lower your taxes.
Expect the same to happen with this. It won't lower your taxes one thin dime.
It's just another thinly disguised tax increase aimed at a group that's politically OK to attack.
Kinda reminds you of the three times they threw the gambling bills at the voters in '92 and '93 until Carnahan and his Dim cronies finally got it to pass.
Yet the Concealed Carry thing wasn't allowed to go back for a second ballot.
Expect this to came back twice or three times a year until the state gets what it wants.
More money.
, a spokesman and consultant for the Missouri Republican Party, as a strategist."I'd wondered what had became of him.
Wow.
Smuggling- and the violence and crime that go along with it- gets more profitable and attractive every day.
People were "running cigs" back in the '80s.
Eventually, tobacco will be banned, and it will be the same colossal failure that Prohibition of alcohol was, and that the War on Drugs has been.
I think I may have to put in a couple acres of 'baccy out behind the still. . .
Terrible headline. This is not supported by the Republican party in Missouri.
They hired some FORMER Republican Campaign advisors to push the vote.
Signed:
Gene from Missouri.
"
This is not true. If you look at how much more smokers pay in taxes than other people, they pay way more than any offset in their costs."
I remember reading that the lifetime health care and missed work cost of cigarettes is about $5 a pack... I'll see if I can find that study and we can see who did it and whether it was obviously biased.
"It's just another thinly disguised tax increase aimed at a group that's politically OK to attack."
I absolutely agrre its a tax increase and wouldn't even say it's disguised.
This was one of the issues that made me a republican in the late 90s. I quickly learned that Republicans are no more friends of smokers than democrats are. If this issue is important to any of you, look at specific candidates and what they say. If they don't speak specifically about this issue, it's safe to assume they are nanny statists.
This is the usual smoke and mirrors of so called "targeted taxes" which will supposedly be "earmarked for specific purposes".
This BS has as much basis in reality as the social security "trust fund", or the tooth fairy. Here in Florida, this approach has been very successfully used repeatedly to sucker [stupid] voters into approving taxes they think someone else will have to pay.
Debunking:
1 - All the money goes into the same kitty. More often than not the same amount of money could be "raised" by cutting some worthless fat from the budget somewhere else. This notion that this tax dollar is for this, and that tax dollar is for that is flat out horse apples.
2 - This is thinly disguised social engineering wrapped in the mantra of someone else paying the taxes that will benefit you. If we should tax "sin" then every member of congress should be taxed at a rate of 95%. Especially since they are costing us a hell of a lot more than smokers!
What a bunch of idiots. Our ignorant Democrap pols tried that here and the Black Market took off. Pols prove that history repeats itself.
As a publisher of a broadsheet in Alabama, count me in and let me know how I might be of assistance.
Nothing conservative about this tax you support, so I guess you would put it under "reactionary", hence a negative doctrine?
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