Smith Wants to Raise Cigarette Tax “for the Children”
Written by Sam on July 17th, 2007.jpg)
Another expansion of government by another RINO on the Left Coast.
Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith wants to increase federal cigarette taxes to expand children’s health insurance.
If approved, his plan to raise the tax as much as 60 cents a pack could couple with a proposed state increase to leave smokers paying an extra $1.45 a pack to light up.
Smith’s announcement on Tuesday follows his endorsement last week of Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s proposal to expand the state’s children health insurance program by increasing tobacco taxes 84.5 cents a pack.
“For a country as wonderful as ours, it is to me unthinkable that there are so many children who go without basic healthcare,” said Smith, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the health care program.
I agree, Gordon, it is a shame, but it’s not your job to be their nanny. A child’s health care is the responsibility of his parents, not the Federal government. The more of a role Washington keeps taking in parenting America’s children, the less responsible parents are going to become.
This legislation is also running concurrent to another piece of legislation by the Socialist Democrats to increase the Federal Cigar Tax from five cents to TEN DOLLARS. That’s right, a 20,000 percent increase, for the children. It is always for the children, after all.
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10/.05 = 200
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Maybe he meant it in percentage
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Yes, I meant percent. Correction made
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The reason anyone can get away with such high percentage increases in taxation is that smoking has rightfully been stigmatized in the eyes of a majority of Americans. In reality, the cigarette tax is more of a tax on the poor seeing the poor smoke more than the population at large. This helps make it more attractive because it does not impact people like me who middle/upper class and do not smoke. This does not make excessive taxation right.
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The reason we tax cigarettes is because demand is inelastic and so the tax generates relatively little deadweight loss. Would you prefer that we tax Fruit Loops and drive Toucan Sam out of business?
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This isn’t an issue of revenue, but of control of the population. Why don’t we end the tax on both cigarettes and not raise taxes on Fruit Loops? You are right that the demand is very inelastic, so isn’t this a case of the government abusing people’s addiction to tobacco to take money right out of their pockets?