Hooked On Food (Food is the Next 'Smoking Ban')

The Osgood File ^ | December 1, 2006 | Charles Osgood

[toddlintown]

I've have to bookmark this. I'm on the way out the door for a Wendy's triple stacker with cheese and bacon.

[MEGoody]

Exactly right. Just as the tobacco lobbyists wanted.

The tobacco lobbyists wanted the tobacco companies to pay out millions? I'm confused by your statement. Can you please explain?

I wouldn't mind paying more taxes if it deprived the government of a conflict of interest in this important public health problem.

Again, I'm a bit confused. (Maybe I need a nap.) Are you agreeing with me that you'd rather have government stay out of it? If so, why would that result in more taxes?

[megatherium]

The tobacco companies didn't want to pay out all that money, of course. What they wanted, however, was for the state legislatures to not spend the money on smoking cessation and prevention programs. They had some success at that. California ran an anti-smoking TV ad campaign that was very successful (teen smoking rates dropped a lot in California) until the legislature pulled the fiscal plug. Anti-smoking activists blame the tobacco lobbyists for that.

I don't want the government collecting taxes from cigarettes if that means that the government has a good reason to keep cigarettes sales up. If we didn't collect taxes from cigarettes, we would have to make up the revenue from something else. Sales taxes or income taxes say. So our taxes would go up if cigarette taxes went away. A purely hypothetical situation of course, no one will reduce taxes on cigarettes.

[MEGoody]

If we didn't collect taxes from cigarettes, we would have to make up the revenue from something else.

Exactly. So if the price of cigarettes actually forces people to stop in large numbers, the government will have to go after something else to replace the revenue. (They probably already have in some places.)

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I asked a nanny stater about that one. I told him, so you'll pay $6.00 for a gallon of gas so I don't smoke or drink anymore. Damn nice of you. He didn't even consider that gas taxes were the most likely place the states and federal governments would try and make up the tax shortfall after he got his wish.

[MEGoody]

He didn't even consider that gas taxes were the most likely place the states and federal governments would try and make up the tax shortfall after he got his wish.

They don't think about that at all. I guess they presume that the government will just do without those tax revenues when everyone quits smoking.

Yeah, right.