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2009-04-02 Economy
Obama tax pledge up in smoke - Pack a day habit will cost additinal $226. a year
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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2009-04-02 07:17|| || Front Page|| [11135 views ]  Top

#1 Now in office, Obama, who stopped smoking but has admitted he slips now and then...

I'll bet he smokes "OP's"...and is a pain in the ass about it...
Posted by tu3031 2009-04-02 09:33||   2009-04-02 09:33|| Front Page Top

#2 Two cartons per day would be my recommendation.
Posted by Besoeker 2009-04-02 09:41||   2009-04-02 09:41|| Front Page Top

#3 Double, triple, and quadruple the taxes on cigarettes. Make 'em unaffordable. Quit subsidizing tobacco companies. Tobacco can burn in hell, and so can its promoters.

My family members who have died of smoke related illnesses include some who died young after hellacious suffering from lung and throat cancer, leaving young children alone and devastated. Another passed out from his heart problems while smoking, setting the house on fire and killing his mother too.

Casting a cigarette tax as an imposition on the poor is nonsense. If you're poor, you can't afford cigarettes, and you certainly can't afford the respiratory problems that make it hard to work and live comfortably. Use the tax to underwrite programs to help the poor quit smoking.
Posted by mom">mom  2009-04-02 09:42||   2009-04-02 09:42|| Front Page Top

#4 Given that I spent last night gaming at a house full of pagan O-bots, one of whom kept blowing pipe smoke in my face, I'm feeling all sorts of schadenfreude this morning.
Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H.  2009-04-02 09:45|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]  2009-04-02 09:45|| Front Page Top

#5 You might get your wish, mom...

WASHINGTON – Anti-smoking forces are predicting a long-awaited victory when the House votes on legislation that would, for the first time, allow government regulation of tobacco products.

The House scheduled a vote for Thursday morning on the legislation, which gives the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate — but not ban — cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Action by the Senate, and President Barack Obama's signature, still would be needed before the bill could become law.

Supporters were convinced they could achieve both those steps. They said success was in sight after years of attempts to tame an industry so fundamental to America that carved tobacco leaves adorn some parts of the U.S. Capitol.

"We have come to what I hope will be an historic occasion, and that is finally doing something about the harm that tobacco does to thousands and thousands of Americans who die each year," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Wednesday as lawmakers debated his Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

His bill wouldn't let the FDA ban nicotine or tobacco outright, but the agency would be able to regulate the contents of tobacco products, make public their ingredients, prohibit flavoring, require much larger warning labels and strictly control or prohibit marketing campaigns, especially those geared toward children.
Posted by tu3031 2009-04-02 10:36||   2009-04-02 10:36|| Front Page Top

#6 “Casting a cigarette tax as an imposition on the poor is nonsense.”

There is absolutely no disputing the FACT that Tobacco taxes are “Regressive” - NONE. The definition of a regressive tax is that they impose a greater burden, relative to resources, on the poor than on the rich. The pernicious nature of Tobacco taxes is as they relate to the physical addiction of the product. In other words, the consumers are much less likely to quit consumption and forgoe other, perhaps more important, products and services. You know…like baby formula.
Whenever the duplicity of these taxes is exposed the advocates have no choice but to justify through deceptive emotional appeals. In this instance they re-state the obvious in that it will reduce harmful consumption and therefore is a good thing. However, their primary goal is NOT to reduce smoking. Their motivation is to raise revenue for their pet programs. So what happens when the revenues eventually decline to adequatley fund their programs? Answer; They raise more taxes! After all…it’s for the children.
Posted by DepotGuy 2009-04-02 12:32||   2009-04-02 12:32|| Front Page Top

#7 Raising revenue under cover of morality, pure and simple. I would consider myself a centerist on the subject of smoking, but I see too much evidence to conclude that this 'is for the people's own good', which can be another subject altogether. The potential HHS secretary Sebelius would be the perfect face to continue the taxing/banning of smoking in the USA as that has been her pet project (state smoking ban) for the last year and half (timing it?).

The author of this article is, at best, stretching a thin arguement and comes across as more a nit-picker of the president than making a decent point IMHO, though does make a point - people can only fight and quit any kind of addiction only when they are GD good and ready (or get doped legal - ex those nicotine pills - or illegal - Rodney King quitting crack but hitting to booze hard for those who watch Doctor Drew - on something to replace that addiction). It has been my experience that poor people do find a way to get money to feed their addictions, and those who cut resources from their kids have a spiritual problem which cannot be solved in this manner.
Posted by swksvolFF 2009-04-02 12:41||   2009-04-02 12:41|| Front Page Top

#8 The American tax payer is flipping the bill for Obama's smokes. What does he care if the price goes up.
Posted by Lftbhndagn 2009-04-02 13:04||   2009-04-02 13:04|| Front Page Top

#9 If you get the taxes high enough the Mexican drug cartels will add smuggling of untaxed cigarettes to their enterprise.

You could get rid of the regressiveness by adding an earned lung cancer tax credit on the IRS 1040. Of course they would have to earn less than $250,000 and smoke to qualify. Save your cigarette receipts. /snarc
Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2009-04-02 14:08||   2009-04-02 14:08|| Front Page Top

#10 They're celebrating at Mohegan Sun.
Posted by William Marcy Tweed 2009-04-02 14:16||   2009-04-02 14:16|| Front Page Top

#11 legislation that would, for the first time, allow government regulation of tobacco products

OK isn't Taxation Regulation?
Posted by Galactic Coordinator Angeart5117">Galactic Coordinator Angeart5117  2009-04-02 15:00||   2009-04-02 15:00|| Front Page Top

#12 Black market, HO-OOO!
Posted by mojo 2009-04-02 15:05||   2009-04-02 15:05|| Front Page Top

#13 It was some eddie murphey movie where he was a cop, beverly hills cop I think, he is undercover selling black market cigs - that movie was in mid '80's. Fortunately for the smokers round here, cuz GBUSMC is absolutely right, there is a ms-13 branch within 60 miles. More like a quick shop operation, you know big city variety with small town lines >:(
Posted by swksvolFF 2009-04-02 16:08||   2009-04-02 16:08|| Front Page Top

#14 The delemma is smoking funds the the childens health care. Stopping smoking is therefore anti-children, but that means taxes on alchohol and gasoline etc will have to be raised to cover the shortfall of money from those selfish quitters.
Posted by Muggsy Glink 2009-04-02 18:28||   2009-04-02 18:28|| Front Page Top

#15 I've noticed a lot of people have started "rolling their own". No taxes at all. They are also starting to grow their own tobacco plants.
Posted by Oscar Snomorong1173 2009-04-02 18:52||   2009-04-02 18:52|| Front Page Top

#16 I first noticed that when a 20 year old kid walked up to me last week and said, "Can you show me how to do a roll?" I didn't realize what he was trying to do. I thought it was pot, but then realized it was tobacco and paper. Another guy showed him how to do it.
Posted by Oscar Snomorong1173 2009-04-02 18:55||   2009-04-02 18:55|| Front Page Top

#17 Yeah and it worked so good with whiskey it's worth doing all over again with smokes.
Posted by  Redneck Jim"> Redneck Jim  2009-04-02 23:44||   2009-04-02 23:44|| Front Page Top

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