If they will tax one industry out of existence, which one will come next?
Orrin Hatch also supports this.
A: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...
What a crock of sh*t.
This is why I quit the Republican Party this year after being a member for 15 years. No Republican will ever get another dime from me, ever, until the neocons are on the dustbin of history and true conservatives take back the party.
Hey Gordo, how many of those kids using SCHIP smoke? I don’t smoke, but this is BS. The states are already getting billions of dollars from the tobacco settlement, guess it just ain’t enough. What a scam.
This may just be me, but it really seems government is getting out of control with stealing our money. This is one example, Houston’s $1000.00 fines for illegal lane changes is another. As is Portland’s $250.00 fine for bikes that don’t stop for stop signs. And let’s not for get eminent domain.
Are we all just peasants that work for the betterment of our masters? I have about had enough. I don’t need some rich politician telling me I’m too greedy because I want to keep what I bust my ass for. F’ing Edwards and his $1000.00 haircut can kiss my ass.
OK, now I feel better.
Yo Gordie, I got a "twofer" for ya. Shut up and sit down!
this is major BS. and like always... it’s for the Children. yeah right. Washington has become a politician cesspool. I am not a smoker btw. I just think it is wrong to target smokers and drinkers like if it is some evil. if Smoking is so dangerous why not ban tobacco? Washington is America’s pimp.
I wish they would get back on the ‘ junk food ‘ wagon
Does anyone know how tax hikes on cigarettes relate to other tobacco products like snuff, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco and cigars? Do the states or federal tax statutes have mechanisms that automatically bump up the non-cigarette product taxes by some amount whenever cigarette taxes are increased?
For information, here is a planning and promotional document for training of allies in the battle to hike tobacco taxes everywhere:
http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom/SLSTobaccoTax.pdf
Sen. Fred Thompson on the National Tobacco Policy and Youth Smoking Reduction Act, (Senate - June 17, 1998):
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I think that the premises on which this legislation began were faulty. And I think they still are.
I think it is basically the premise that in order for us to express our hatred for the tobacco companies and in order for us to express our love for our children, we must pass a tax increase in excess of $800 billion a year over a 25-year period, which is three times our annual defense budget.
That, Mr. President, is a faulty premise. It is based on the faulty premise that we can raise taxes and raise the price of cigarettes to a point that it will discourage youth smoking; we can raise it high enough to do that but not so high as to create a black market. I understand that one out of every five packs of cigarettes sold in the State of California today are black-market cigarettes. It is based upon the premise that if you will raise prices of cigarettes that the youth of America will substantially decrease smoking, even though there is no evidence to indicate that.
I yield the floor.
Dear Senate,
I’d love to contribute more money to your latest boondoggle, but I can’t keep up! See, you tell me smoking is bad for me. Then, you tell me pretty much the only place I am “allowed” to smoke is in my own home. Problem is, I don’t just stay in my own home.
I recently embarked on 2 18 hour plane trips. I was not allowed to smoke in any of the airports, bars or resturants I went to. (Well, I did find out the fine for smoking in O’Hare was $50.00....after spending about 4 hours there, and waiting for a flight that was “late” (it’s the new “on time”) I told the airline folks I was ready to take my chances with a fine...we boarded the plane shortly thereafter). Spending 30 minutes in line to go thru security for a 10 minute smoke break is just stoooopid!
So, anyway, I can’t smoke enough to fund your projects. If you would consider letting me smoke in more places, I may be able to. Or, I may just quit.
But first you must explain to me why you’ve decided to fund every darn thing you can think of by rising the taxes on smokers. If it’s such an awful industry, why don’t you just make it illegal? Oh, yeah, you’re still hurting over the realization that you’re losing billions every year on the pot tax!
I can understand a family’s need for X Boxes, cell phones and Ipods but I wish the scum in this country would use the money to pay for their children’s healthcare so the rest of us don’t have to do it. How do you like Socialism/Communism so far?
I wonder why they don’t just ban cigarettes? They would tell you that they raise taxes on smokers because they don’t want them to do it, but if that were really true, they would just ban the sale of smokes.
What’s really going on is they know they can raise money at the expense of nicotine addicts, because they know the addicts will pay it. They are such easy targets all around.
Ha,ha, a friggin Republican puts this bill up. Seriously is there REALLY a Republican Party left ???
"It really does come down to a choice between children and tobacco," said Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.). "This is a 'twofer.' It does decrease smoking, and it does connect public healthcare costs with one of the drivers of that cost, and that's tobacco."
This man is absolutely delusional and has no concept of economics. You do NOT fund something like this with a tax on a product you are discouraging hte use of.
What is wrong with Republicans, anyway?
I can remember when one could buy a pack of cigarettes for less than this one tax increase, but if its for the chiiiiiiiilllllllldrrrrrrennnnn....
It sounds a lot more like it came down to a choice between the Constitution and lining your own pockets to me.