Saturday, March 21, 2009

As if we needed more examples of politician stupidity,

we have this from Liberty Girl:
Come April 1, the fed govt is going to start taxing us smokers like never before, with an additional $1.01 per pack. The old fed tax was 39 cents. That is almost tripled. The object of this higher tax: to pay for the new SCHIP program that covers “children” up to, what, age thirty-something for health care insurance.

In the next breath, the fed says that new tax will make adults stop smoking and prevent kids from starting
.
I will leave aside any opinions about smoking, I'm talking about the pure stupidity and/or crookedness of this. They're going to tax cigarettes to pay for a health program for kids, AND they say the tax will cause people to stop smoking. Which, if true, means the money for the health program goes away, which means they'll want to raise taxes on something else to raise the money. So the politicians are either too stupid to see that, or so dishonest that they're counting on taxing something else later and hoping the anti-smoking nazis will help them get through any questions.

The country is truly in the Best of Hands

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Head for the reservations to buy your cigarettes.

Kevin said...

Oh, it gets better than that. The tax on "roll your own" loose tobacco goes up from $1.10 per pound to $24.78/lb. and the tax on cigars goes up from 5¢ to 40¢ each.

But it's for the CHILLLLLLDREN!

Firehand said...

This is just freakin' insane. Which means it about what we should expect from that bunch of loons

Anonymous said...

Oh no no that's the point. If/when we all stop smoking they will put a higher tax on another "luxury" item. Such as coffee, sugar, gas, or whatever they can think of. Oh and by the way, that will also kill farming in several states, but, no one want's to say that either.