Posted on 01/12/2006 1:49:32 PM PST by John Jorsett
Normally, I would wait until later to protest the proposed $2.60-per-pack tax on cigarettes being pushed for next fall by the American Cancer Society and other powerful health associations. But it’s such a rotten idea I don’t want to delay.
Huge new taxes on specific groups of people create weird backlashes--in this case, probably skyrocketing sales of black-market cigarettes as smokers find creative ways to avoid this grab at their wallets.
But, far worse, the proposed $2.1 billion tax, which will hit a shrinking population of mostly working-class and middle-class Californians, is horribly backward. It punishes smokers, yet it uses scandalously little of the windfall on research into lung cancer or other diseases associated with smoking--just 2 percent would go to that.
Instead, in one of the greater stealth moves I’ve seen in a while, this measure would transfer money from smokers’ wallets into the wallets of illegal aliens. In our hopelessly PC world, we aren’t supposed to talk about illegal immigrants anymore. But let’s do it anyway.
The measure achieves this stealth transfer by pledging the vast majority of the $2.1 billion to emergency-room care as well as to health coverage for children--two services that, in California, provide massive assistance to illegal immigrants.
California already pours more money into free health insurance for children than any other state. In fact, California’s free and near-free health-insurance programs for children, including Healthy Families and others, are so generous that families need not be poor to qualify. Nor do they need to be legal residents. Under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the program has swelled, just as it did under Gray Davis.
John Graham, director of health-care studies for the fiscally conservative Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, told me: “If your child hasn’t got health care in California, you are a negligent parent. There are 900,000 children who qualify for Healthy Families and other programs but are not enrolled. They are eligible but still not enrolled due to parents’ inattentiveness; laziness; or the feeling that the kids are healthy, so they don’t give a hoot.’’
Smokers shouldn’t have to pay for that mess. Graham, who will soon release a research paper on California insurance, said, “The number of children not insured, who are not eligible, is probably very, very close to zero in California. We don’t have a crisis of coverage here. We have a crisis of parents not taking appropriate parental action.”
The proposed tax would take an estimated $405 million each year from smokers to fund yet more insurance for children. Some newspapers have reported that this would “fill the gap.” How typical. Throw somebody else’s money at a problem rather than deal directly with the problem.
The other absurd feature of the proposed $2.1 billion tax on smokers is its intent to spend vast sums on emergency-room care. A staggering $902 million each year would be taken from smokers and diverted to ERs.
As Graham noted, “If this were a rational tax, it would go to programs on smoking cessation and curing lung cancer. But it is not rational. The overuse of emergency rooms in California--the use of the system is highly biased toward illegal immigrants and not toward smokers.”
Illegal immigrants badly overuse ERs rather than utilizing often-free local health-care clinics or find a family doctor. This is a very bad habit that cries out for reform, not encouragement. California should not spend another cent on ER funding. It instead should get immigrant families to stop using incredibly costly ERs as their substitute for a family doctor.
Again, we are not supposed to be talking openly like this. However, if the overuse of the ER system by people who do not have an emergency were halted, we’d quickly discover that taxpayers are pouring more than enough into California’s ER system.
And the American Cancer Society’s plan is foolish for this final reason: The tax would not help to reduce the number of smokers, as hefty cigarette tax hikes once did. California has whittled its population of smokers down to a much smaller bunch of hard-core cigarette addicts.
Despite all this, I think the proposed measure has a real chance with California voters next fall. Californians love taxing smokers. Smokers, after all, are the only people you can be openly bigoted against with the blessing of society at large.
So, let’s create a fat new tax that spends a paltry 2 percent on research into lung cancer and other smokers’ diseases, that rewards the growing misuse of ERs, and that throws more money at health insurance for children who should have been signed up for existing insurance by their parents long ago.
Sounds like a classic California fiscal plan to me.
I understand that this happened/happens in New York a few years ago/now.
When all of these wonderful, feel-good programs become revenue dependent on cigarettes, guess who's going to be promoting smoking!
Just outlaw cigarettes and be done with it.
Isnt everyone just a bit tired of robbing cigarette smokers?
Isnt everyone a bit tired of the invasion of the privacy of smokers.
Now they want to not only want to fire smokers but fire them if anyone in their family uses cigarettes.
Hasnt this Bullshit gone far enough?
The amount of smokers has rescinded over the years has the incidence of cancer?? Hell no. Its all a boatload.
Amazing. They will NEVER kill the "smelly goose" that lays golden eggs. Just tax the smokers to death...
This is a tax based on DISCRIMINATION!The politically correct do not approve of your lifestyle,therefore you must be taxed however it is okay for them to smoke dope!I think they should be taxed for NOT SMOKING.
And to be 'fair' it should be that the longer they live - the MORE you tax them.
Rob Reiner opposes this because he thinks it'll result in less smoking (or in smuggling), eating into the 50-cent-a-pack tax cash cow that funds his First 5 California organization.
That sounds great. I pay A LOT more than that now!
"California has whittled its population of smokers down to a much smaller bunch of hard-core cigarette addicts"
BS! We just buy them mail order from indian reservations out of state.
I thought mail/internet-order sales get reported to the state and they then send you a letter demanding payment of the tax on the cigarettes you were shipped.
The prissy-a** elites have never cared for the poor or working class. Never.
ROBBER REINER'S LIES
AND HOLLYWOOD MONEY
WON AGAIN!
(Talk about Big Fat!)
Situational ethics? When Reiner put River Phoenix in his movie, Stand By Me, and had him
smoke throughout, Phoenix was only 14 years old. Guess it's okay to
have kids smoke when it's for Reiner's benefit.
Can't stand the high taxes?
Afraid to order off of the Internet?
Then start rolling your own!!! I find everything but the machine downtown at the local Smoke Shop. Also, Rite Aid and grocery stores also sell the bags of tobacco and the filtered tubes.
I roll out a beautiful carton for a little under $8 dollars. Premiums in my state are now up to $45-$50 a carton. Can you imagine the money I have saved over the past 4 years since I now roll my own? It's mind boggling.
under $50.00
Check StuffYourOwn for prices on tobacco
$1.99 for 200 filtered tubes
and
"Amazing. They will NEVER kill the "smelly goose" that lays golden eggs. Just tax the smokers to death..."
I quit smoking to F the government ;)
"Is he joking? Is he Joking?"
The indian reservations won't report to the states except the state that they are located in.
Sellers other than indians have to report as do reservations within California.
For a few years we had to have ours shipped to a friend house because our postman snitched on us.
There are plenty of us who agree with that - we're tired of the nonsense.
Isnt everyone just a bit tired of robbing cigarette smokers?
Not according to many members of FR.
Isnt everyone a bit tired of the invasion of the privacy of smokers.
Not according to many members of FR.
Now they want to not only want to fire smokers but fire them if anyone in their family uses cigarettes
Many here think it's a great idea.
Hasnt this Bullshit gone far enough?
Not according to many members of FR.
The amount of smokers has rescinded over the years has the incidence of cancer?? Hell no. Its all a boatload.
You've got that right.
All of this has gotten totally out of hand, but considering the number of so-called conservatives that support the attacks on smokers, it's not surprising that it is not ending.
They do this because they know they can get away with it. No one is going to come to the defense of smokers and smoking. If they wind up discouraging smoking through heavy taxation, making smokers no longer a signifantly-exploitable segment of the population or, if smokers go out of state, or go black market, or roll their own, then the governments will wind up taxing something else. These b*st*rds need to be stopped, but I have feeling that this is a steamroller that is headed in only one direction.
This is a country that was founded partly in resistance to oppressive taxation. Some of our founders tossed tea in Boston Harbor. In the early days of the Republic, there was a rebellion over the tax on whiskey. Can anyone imagine that true American spirit being conjured up today?
I live in Florida. The weekend before Christmas, my wife and I were returning to our car in the Wal-Mart parking lot. We were in the second section AWAY from the store front(not up front where the Salvation Army was set up).
I was approached by a 40 something yuppie, asking me if I wanted to sign the American Cancer Society petition to stop underage smoking. I am a smoker, and I really don't want children to smoke, but my packaged filled hands showed the petition person that I was a little busy to "help him out".
That evening on FOX, I saw this ACS petition drive thingee in California.
If I had known what his petition was REALLY about when he tried to present it to me, I can guarantee you my fellow freepers that I would have had a "CNN Moment".
I use the term "CNN Moment" to describe the following:
An incident anywhere in the US where it is covered by ALL the MSM's and cable outlets in "REAL TIME",with at least 3 or more helicopters, and the replay of the incident goes through at least one full 24 hour news cycle.....
I have 2 words for the ACS and the rest of the body parts cartel.............and only one of the words can be posted here.........
Ping!
If smoking is an addiction, isn't it a disability? And doesn't the law require that persons with disabilities be accomodated? I'm waiting for a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act that would require places of public accomodation provide smoking rooms.
It is sad here in WA state, now that smoking is illegal in public places, the people that still smoke, actually sound thankful for having to stand outside a bar. They say they smoke less, and never liked the smelly smokey bars anyway......strange reaction. On the other hand, I will bet that the Injun casinos, and of course their mafia bosses, are lapping up the results. The ban does not affect them.
As soon as such is proposed to the anti-smoekrs, they quickly change their tune and claim it is not an addiction.
Instead of reeling at the cost and blaming everyone else...the smokers should seriously consider quitting. The costs in medical care alone for smoking-related illness is outrageous, and most of it paid for by us, the taxpayers.
Just think of the slap in the face to lawmakers when they can no longer tax tobacco. Of course, they'll tax the air we breathe or something else.
I'm a former smoker and I quit cold turkey 17 years ago. If I can do it, anyone can. Just something to consider...
(ducking!)
Of course, a bar isn't a public place, it's private property.
actually sound thankful for having to stand outside a bar.
Yeah, that's why bar owners are reporting dramatic fall-off in business all over the country.
Get real.
That is just another bogus lie that has been repeated enough even intelligent people have come to take it for truth.
The truth is that smokers pay more into the system than they take out and in fact are subsizing health care costs of non-smokers.
Just ask Henry Waxman, who ordered the Congressional Research Service to do a study for him in order to justify an increase in the federal cigarette tax.............there was no tax increase, can you guess why?
I am on your side......just reporting what my smoking friends say....
I have been railing about the mafia(ok, organized crime) aspect of the casinos, which are unregulated by and large, for quite a while. It is amazing the responses you get. Usually beginning with, "the Indians deserve a monopoly, to make up for our mistreatment", to "you've got to be kidding me". If you are in WA, you also probably know, that the Indians pay less than full sales tax to the state, are building malls to compete with off reservation stores. They are building gas stations, and don't pay the same amount of taxes, but charge the same as non-tribals, and are now allowed to purchase private property, and use it as if it was tribal land.....turn existing hotels into casinos.....this is one weird state of affairs. The bottom line, they have a built in advantage, lower costs, little or no regulation, and the ear of the pols.....This state is about to find out what it is like to live in pre-Castro Cuba, or prohibition era Chicago.
"That is just another bogus lie "
No, it's not a lie. Almost ALL (not all but ALMOST ALL) emphysema is smoking-related. Just think of the numbers of folks who get emphysema (cancer notwithstanding). Therefore, all of that is preventable by simply not smoking to begin with.
You can't tell me that EVERYONE who doesn't smoke is going to get emphysema, can you?
I'm not saying that smoking is the ONLY cause for death. But it's a huge factor in MOST lung, oral, throat, esophageal cancers and in almost all of emphysema patients. It's a fact that cannot be dismissed, no matter how you look at it. Statistics back me up and my 25 years of nursing thousands of patients with all kinds of cancer and emphysema proved it repeatedly.
I wouldn't listen to any "research" Waxman can come up with..his overly large nostrils alone are reason enough for me to avoid anything that he says.
I go on record as saying If people want to smoke cigarettes thats their own business.
If they wish to burn holes in their car , their suit, their furniture and smell like an incinerator, thats not my business.
I dont smoke and never have. I have friends that do and it doesnt interfere with our friendship.I dont like seatbelts, and I think its up to the rider of a motorcycle to make his own decision on them.
Why is it that some people feel it is their duty to tell me and others what they feel is good for me.
Cigarettes have been around a long time, at one time Tobacco was used the same as money in this country. Then the incremental attacks began. First it was the sin tax, then the law suits, then no smoking sections in restaurants,
then no smoking in the reastaurant, then the bars, then law suits when people on an outdoor patio were smoking and it drifted yo someone elses patio. Then they fire you for smoking , now they want to fire you if your wife smokes. They dont want people smoking in a car with their kids or at home with their kids.
Dammit grow some gnads and either get off their backs or outlaw the things . Then you wont get your tax money and you can waste police time chasing down smokers like you do marijuana smokers now.Revenuers can comb the woods looking for tobacco growers, ad infinitum.
I was discussing economics not health.
The point I was making is that the non-partisan CRS determined that tobacco taxes should be REDUCED because smokers pay far more than they use. It was not Waxman's rsearch - he wanted them to prove that smokers were a financial drain to taxpayers.......but the proof is NOT there.
I can't add anything to what you just said.
I don't know if that's true or not, but for the purposes of discussion assuming it is, the taxpayers (or more accurately, the government) undertook that obligation voluntarily. Presenting the beneficiaries with the bill for the unrequested health services is like me undertaking, unasked, to mow your yard for you, then demanding that you reimburse me for my gasoline, work clothes, etc. To which you'd properly respond, "Nobody asked you, so stop doing it."
I'm not a smoker, but now that it's been banned from public spaces where it was a nuisance to nonsmokers, I think it's time to climb off smoker's backs. If they want to continue with their habit, it's no business of mine as long as they're not interfering with my airspace.
I disagree.
It isn't the smoking that is an issue at all. Once it's gone it's gone.
Feel good, shmeel good!
It's a money grab and once the money is grabbed from smoking, then it will be beverages, fast foods, boats, ect. and it will continue to the point that all will be considered illegal or unwanted personal preference until they are gone too.
Then those recipients of the taxes finally will leave for the money givers will have given all they can give.
I think my governor, Tim Pawlenty has the right attitude.
Force smokers into the realm of severe tyranny and base it on a "users fee", after all taxes are distasteful for a Republican.
A most appropriate motto that politicians ache to use but fear using it:
"If you use it, you lose it".
So, don't have anything to use, and you can't loose.
Sorry for the rant my FRiend....
The answer is yes....they are outside of Wa state authority, according to policy. I would think the state would tax the slots at around %50, and fill the coffers of this state...but they way they do it now, they fill their own pockets I am sure.
isn't that the equal protection angle in our constitutional law?
Imagine that!!
LOL!!
Those who don't die from natures grace via the sun first.
Do you realize that virtually ALL cases of skin cancer is because of the effects of the sun?
Somehow we need to create a rich human entity to blame because of their efforts in allowing people to obtain over exposer to the suns effects.
I had a little machine 30 years ago...that put out a decent cigarette. Seems we used Bugle tobacco...and bot the little filters and papers at the local store.
More than one way to skin a cat.....
In order to minimize the possibility of being banned, let me just say:
GGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr !!
Excuse me, but smokers pay more then their fair share with cigarette taxes. And most of us HAVE our own health insurance. If I get sick, no one pays for me but ME. So stop believing all the garbage you read about smokers costing you a lot of money in health care. It's BOGUS!
Just think of the slap in the face to lawmakers when they can no longer tax tobacco. Of course, they'll tax the air we breathe or something else.
Well, get ready. They WILL come after the non smokers soon for something you enjoy.
I'm a former smoker and I quit cold turkey 17 years ago. If I can do it, anyone can. Just something to consider...
I really enjoy smoking. It's my only vice in this world. I don't want to quit. Congratulations for you, though. 
I remember rolling Bugler cigarettes for my parents with this little machine. But the Supermatic II machine has come a long way, and now we can buy the filtered tubes. I love it!
Amen!
Mafia in the casinos--who would have thunk it? Mafia makes their biggest haul in the the credit card business and the government passes laws to protect them and their lone-sharking rates from folks filing bankruptcy. Too funny.
"claim it is not an addiction"
This is the tobacco industries mantra- since people quit all the time, it's not an addiction- simple solution- take the nicotine out and smoking becomes a choice!
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