They only reason they get away with is because smokers are outcasts and there is no public outrage. ---------------------------- Our turn to be the Jew. When the sugar tax comes and it will and the fat tax on sugar tax comes and it will -- fuck 'em, those health care consuming fatties. The list is endless.
The problem with that line of thought is it's just a matter of time before something of interest or appeal to you will get taxed and no one will stand up and resist either. Sort of the FUIGM mindset. (F U I Got Mine)
When Iowa raised its cigarette tax by about $1.00 per pack it led to a large smuggling industry with people going to Missouri (which has one of the lowest taxes..sitting next to Iowa, with one of the highest) that has been, even by our own attorney general's admission, a very profitable business for Mexican Drug Cartels and other Organized Criminals. They also have taken ordinary people and charged them with serious crimes for daring to drive down there to save a few bucks on a few packs of cigarettes because if you bring back more then 2 cartons you can be charged. I'm not a smoker and never have been, but it's stupid. Missouri's tax on gasoline is also significantly lower vs Iowa's (Maybe Iowa just has something against 7/11 owners), and especially when gas prices where so high last year a large number of people who lived near the border started filling up in Missouri (some stations reported sales of gas down nearly 50%)...that's the exact same thing. Trying to avoid your states taxes. In Iowa the average sales tax is around 8%...Back when South Dakota didnt have one (or it was very low) a lot of people who lived up in Northwest Iowa used to do almost all of their shopping in SD to avoid paying taxes. If we where going to be fair they should have been charged as criminals too. Of course none of those will because smokers have become the only minority group who it's acceptable to discriminate against (funny how it's the liberals who originated this one..not those evil conservatives) Brandon PS..one last time, I'm not, nor have I ever been a smoker. Most members of my family are also not smokers and I'm only friends with a few..I just think that they way they are treated is BS.
Actually men can get breast cancer. But I do see your point about the insurance. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/male-breast-cancer/DS00661
They came for the smokers, but I said nothing, as I did not smoke. They came for the beer drinkers, but I said nothing, as I did not drink. They came for me, and their was nobody left to speak up. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123976316293519743.html Today is the dreaded April 15, but at least in Oregon it's even going to cost you more to drown in your tax sorrows. In their sober unwisdom, the state's pols plan to raise taxes by 1,900% on . . . beer. The tax would catapult to $52.21 from $2.60 a barrel. The money is intended to reduce Oregon's $3 billion budget deficit and, ostensibly, to pay for drug treatment. If it passes, Oregon will overnight become the most taxing state for suds, one-third higher than the next highest beer tax state, Alaska. The state may do this even though Oregon is the second largest microbrewery producer in the U.S. The beer industry and its 96 breweries contribute 5,000 jobs and $2.25 billion to state GDP. Kurt Widmer of Widmer Brewing Co. says the tax would "devastate our company and small breweries throughout the state." Adds Joe Henchman, director of state projects at the Tax Foundation, "This microbrewery industry has gravitated to Oregon in part due to low beer taxes." For Oregon to enact punitive taxes on its homegrown beer industry makes as much sense as Idaho slapping an excise tax on potatoes or for New York to tax stock trading. Even without the tax increase, taxes are the single most expensive ingredient in a glass of beer, according to the Oregon Brewers Guild. But Democrats who run the legislature are desperate for the revenues to help pay for Oregon's 27.9% increase in the general fund budget last year. If they have their way, every time a worker steps up to the bar and orders a cold one, his tab will rise by an extra $1.25 to $1.50 a pint. Half of these taxes will be paid by Oregonians with an income below $45,000 a year. Voters might want to remember this the next time Democrats in Salem profess to be the party of Joe Six Pack.
good god... what do they say about good intentions. liberals are full of good-intentions, not to mention SH1T
Lessons learned form the tobacco tax. Skip the health campaign and media ads, just concentrate on the tax dollars. Sorry about the paste job. --------------- WANT a lesson in political cyni cism, dressed up as concern for public health? Then grab the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, and read city Health Commissar -- sorry, Commissioner -- Thomas Frieden's piece on how to line up support for a soda tax. His advice: Lure legislators with dollar signs -- but convince the public it's all about health. The soda tax didn't make it into state law in the latest budget, but it's still a top priority for those like Frieden (the architect of the city's trans-fat ban) who think it's the government's role to tell all Americans what they can and can't put into their bodies. How does Frieden plan to bring the soda tax back from the dead? The most important thing to realize, he argues, is that the public is basically clueless on the issue. "Poll results show that support of a tax on sugared beverages ranges from 37 to 72 percent," write Frieden and his co-author, a Yale professor of food policy. And when the public is clueless, you can easily manipulate it: "A poll of New York residents found that 52 percent supported a 'soda tax,' but the number rose to 72 percent when respondents were told that the revenue would be used for obesity prevention." Prevention means "media campaigns, facilities and programs for physical activity, and healthier food in schools." Yet, earlier in the same piece, Frieden is none too impressed by such campaigns: "A penny-per-ounce excise tax could reduce consumption of sugared beverages by more than 10 percent," Frieden claims. "It is difficult to imagine producing behavior change of this magnitude through education alone, even if government devoted massive resources to the task." So, a media or education campaign adds virtually nothing to the "beneficial" effects of the tax itself. So why dedicate the money from the tax to a media campaign? Well, that's not what would happen with the money at all -- as Frieden surely knows, but doesn't say. That's just how he's saying it should be sold to the public. Meanwhile, the tax would be sold differently to the people who actually make the decision: state lawmakers. "A third consideration is revenue generation," Frieden writes. "A penny-per-ounce excise tax would raise an estimated $1.2 billion in New York state alone." But if legislators are tempted by new revenue, it won't be because they want to spend it on new programs subsidizing veggies for kids (as Frieden proposes in the article). They'd use it, as happens with all funds supposedly "dedicated" to any one purpose, to plugging the state's multibillion-dollar budget gap. Frieden doesn't say this, of course, but anyone who's ever spent more than five minutes in or around government surely knows it to be true. But let's put aside the disingenuousness of Frieden's argument here for a minute. Pretend a soda tax would be designed to curb obesity, as opposed to being administered like the cigarette tax -- jacked up whenever legislators promise more to the unions than current taxes can bear. What this is really about, at the end of the day, still isn't health -- it's control. That is, food is the new sex -- the new target for those who feel the need to police everyone else's behavior. If the argument is about what substances or foods help us or harm us, science will always give the buttinskies sufficient excuse to ban one behavior or mandate another. Which is why this argument is really about our right to be left alone in decisions as personal as what we put in our bodies. Frieden's response to those who object to broadening the crusade against cigarettes and alcohol into the arena of food is that "sugared beverages are not necessary for survival." And neither is a meddling and dishonest health department necessary for the well-being of New York. editor@ryansager.com
More consumption taxes = less income taxes. What the hell, all these illegals [and other criminals] in the US don't pay income taxes, tax the sh1t that they like as in Beer, Cigarettes, Sodas... tax them out of existence if necessary.. Tax twenty year old Toyotas, that's what they drive.. if they want a tax break, tell them to move to Mexico..