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| *Loan,banking and credit>>>cigarette tax |
Cigarette tax to fund health care? Really? |
The Senate Finance Committee voted 17-4 for a five-year, $35 billion increase to the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which now enables health coverage for 6.6 million children. An additional, estimated 3.2 million uninsured people could be covered under the plan. It would be paid for by raising the 39-cent federal tax on a pack of cigarettes to $1. See the article in USA Today at http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/... Today USA Today has a story that says "As Congress weighs the biggest federal cigarette tax hike in history, a USA TODAY analysis finds that higher state taxes on smokers have produced sharp declines in consumption." See the story at http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007... Several people on Yahoo have been bashing Bush about a threatened veto on this. If the tax goes up and the number of smokers goes down, where in the !@$# is the money going to come from for this program? You make a good point. If they keep raising taxes like that, nobody's going to be able to afford to smoke, and there goes all that funding for the plan. I think they're going to drive cigarettes into the black market. People are going to end up growing and selling tobacco illegally, selling cigarettes cheaper than what the tobacco companies do, and then people will still be smoking, but the government isn't going to reap a penny of tax from the sells. If anything, it'll cause the government to spend more money trying to track down and stop the illegal tobacco sellers. Hiking the tax on smokes will only cut revenues because people will: 1. quit smoking. 2. buy stolen smokes from the black market. This also would cause an increase in violent crime from robbing the stores and shipments. 3. mail order from indian reservations to avoid tax. 4. grow their own. Furthermore this program as it is written in congress allows families with 80k incomes eligible for the program as well as adults without children. Amendments to this bill to restrict eligibility of this program to children only of families that make 200% of the poverty line or less have been rejected. 200% of the poverty line = 41k for a family of four. Don't get me wrong, I am all for helping out low income children, but I do not consider a family of four making 80k a year any where close to low income and 200% of the poverty line is still pushing it a bit far. Also, when has any earmarked tax dollars ever been used for what it is supposed to be used for. The money is always hijacked to pay for some other wasteful spending pet project. everyone in my family smokes and everyone i know smokes...arizona just raised the state tax on cigs another .80 cents along with the recent federal raises..the price of cigs have gone up almost $3 a pack now that being said you know how many of us have quit smoking...NONE...we have just found cheeper ways of getting tobacco..like role your own loose tobacco in the bag..with papers it comes out to $12 a carton even cheeper if you get it on the rez then its like $8 a carton...now compare that to the $50-$75 dollers a carton for pre-rolled commercial cigs |
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