Barely Squeaking Bye - BSB

Adding a $23 tax on an $18 bag of tobacco should not happen! With the $5 tax on the $2 tubes, that means a smoker must pay an average of $70 extra in taxes per month! I think the big cigarette company's are behind this! The way I see it, I can pay $55 and roll my own or $65 already rolled.
Look at it this way a carton of cigs is going to have an extra $6.50 tax. Roll your own will cost an extra $20 for a carton.

Nope, the politicians who want to fund socialized health care are.

__________________
Roger

Well everyone's definition of BSB is diffrent too. I know some folks who think that not being able to afford to eat out several times a week and buy $60 sweaters is just barely getting by.

Gee, I thought it was the populist outcry of constant smoker bashing propelling these sin tax policies.

I wish society would pick another scapegoat for a while, say like overweight folks.

Maybe we should crack down on over eating and empty calorie foods. Obesity is related to far more health care costs than smoking.

I say we institute a 50% increase in taxes on any food considered 'junk' or 'processed'. It would yield far, far more in tax revenues than increasing cigarette and alcohol taxes.

Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, is it not?

It is... thing is they don't know that they're digging a hole that they'll be pushed in to themselves.

I think it should be more like a 1000% on junk food (especially chocolate)... after all if they're gonna raise tobacco by 2148%, that's less than half. I think that's fair enough.

__________________
"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid".

"Walk a mile in another persons shoes, I dare you!"

Some don't have these vices - BY CHOICE. I remember when I was a young kid (16 ish) who LOVED FISHING (still do). I told my dad I wanted to buy a canoe - he asked where I would get the money for one. I took one look at the cigarette in his hand and said I don't smoke. His comment was "you will have the canoe sooner than you think". Wise advice - have taken it to heart for all my life. Things that make me a better person (reading, sporting, raising animals and food storage) have served me well over the years.

"So yes, they are more addictive now than in the past without all the added chemicals."

IF one knows about this - its not a secret then explain why anyone would would be stupid enough to burn an herb full of chemicals and suck them into their lungs and call it PLEASURE? The reasoning is beyond my comprehension. If you want to kill yourself wouldn't it be easier just to stand out on the interstate and dodge cars.

Yuccaflats

"Americans grew tired of being thought of as dumb by the rest of the world,
so they went to the polls and removed all doubt."

and not even that. Their addiction is TAXES - I haven't seen them give them up since they started what over 200 years ago?

__________________
The Good Lord don't always give me what I want and hopefully He never gives me what I deserve.

And while were on taxing addictions, why not throw in some taxes on gambling, sex, exercise, porn, power, illegal drugs, addictive pharmaceuticals (poor Rush), and money in addition to cigs, alcohol and junk food.

That should cover it. I'm sure there are more addictions out there, but those will hit just about every person alive today.

Oh yes, I forgot one more - oil.

So... you're saying that every choice you've made in life has been a smart one??? If not, then I would have to call your statements rather sanctimonious.

Most people manage to make at least a few decisions in life that range from unwise to simply stupid. Almost all smokers will say that starting was one of the more stupid things they ever did.

The discussion is not whether the choice to start was smart or not... it's about whether quiting is as easy as some seem to think it is.

__________________
"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid".

Any time I'm in paying for gas I see all the cigs and price tags . . . .
. . .WOW . . . . $$$ 5 bucks for a pack.
If BSB can't figure that one out . . .heaven help her.............

Yes here in Mich. our lovely, wonderfull gov-ner has it all figured out that those wonderful sin taxes are going to solve Mich's woes.

Motivation; A very good friend developed cancer of the larynx.
Not so very much fun watching what all he went through.
. .And eventually loosing his larynx . . . . . . . . . . . .
Yes he's one of those folks that have a VERY permanent hole in their neck.
He moved to FL because he had big problems breathing in the very cold winter air here in Mich.

That was motivation enough for me 12 years ago............
Thank goodness.

Just curious (I don't smoke)... if cig companies add chemicals to make them more addictive, is it easier for one who makes their own smokes to quit or are chemicals added to plain tobacco, too?

__________________
Proverbs 22:3 "A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished." KJV www.informedchristians.com

Hobbes, there was one company (American Spirit) that grew an all natural product and added nothing to the tobacco. People who smoke/d their brand don't have as strong of cravings as people who smoke other brands. Big tobacco bought them out.

There's plenty of incentive to quit smoking. Just the fact that people continue to says a lot about how addictive it is.

1- tobacco is more addictive/harder to give up than heroin I am taught- if not actually physically then in part because society tolerates it more so there is less incentive (ie staying out of jail, for one) to quit.

1a- I've seen folks whose kids might die (asthma) because they smoke who won't quit, won't even smoke outside the house (which is a selfishness separate from addiction to tobacco- addiction to their own comfort I guess). And folks who know THEY will die from smoking and won't stop.

2- We should grow our own if we must indulge to avoid the tobacco companies' blackmail of our bodies

3- I am a liberal medic so

3a- I like using taxes and economics to alter behavior- encourage marriage and children with lower taxes for them, discourage driving with gas and car taxes (loved the rise in oil prices- sorry for the environment they're low again) and discourage things bad for our bodies with alcohol and tobacco taxes. I am sorry for the old longterm poor addicts but glad if they have some incentive to smoke less and that the kids might decide tobacco is too expensive to start and thereby not get hooked in the first place. I actually wish folks had to get cigarettes on a prescription like methadone- keep it only for the current addicts not start many new addicts.

3b- on the flip side I am against regressive taxes like lottery tickets and cigarette taxes paying for schools and other state expenses. FOlks who've done well in America- my husband and me on a small scale and BIll Gates etc on a huge scale- should pay a higher rate of taxes than those not doing real well. Social security taxes and tobacco and alcohol taxes and lottery costs and sales taxes add up to a much higher percent of a poorer working person's pay than they do for a much higher paid worker who spends less than they earn (maybe they read HT!) so I think all those taxes if charged to pay government bills without any goal of decreasing driving or smoking etc are unfair- a burden on those who can afford them less than the average American.

Yes... sin laws ( and taxes) have worked so well to keep people out of jail and alter behavior. It worked well during alcohol prohibition... and it's working well now for gambling, prostitution and drugs

The cost of vices has little to nothing to do with whether someone (including teens) starts doing them or if they stop. Jail, or the threat of jail, has little impact when people engage in these activities. Even in societies most restrictive enviroments (ie. prison). the inmates manage to get tobacco, have sex and do drugs... often at hugely inflated risk, cost and extra prison time.

I always wonder about the general liberal philosophy regarding personal freedoms. Seems that freedom of choice only applies to things they like.

__________________
"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid".

DH and I got our seeds to grow our own yesterday. I grew up working in the tobacco field, so I know something about it. The seeds came with directions for home growing and curing. That is one way to beat the government. I don't even smoke, but I will grow it just in protest that I can and there is nothing they can do about it (for now anyway.)

The trouble I have with smoking is that it does not just effect the person who is smoking. I get an allergic reaction if I am around smoke too long. My face puffs up and I get a headache. I have never tried smoking nor have I tried drinking. I agree it is probably very hard to quit smoking, but then the person had a choice in the first place not to do it. I have no problem with taxing it half to death to pay for the increased burden to pay for people and their poor choices. People who smoke don't exist in some sort of smokers only vacuum where no one else has to pay for a smoker's ailments. Smokers put an extra burden on state and federal health care plans by their choice.

My brother always whines how he doesn't have money for gas/food/ ect. yet he always has money for those stupid cigs. Too many times people try and divorce personal responsibility from their own decisions and use excuses like addiction as a scape goat for those bad decisions.

The same goes for wall street gamers, power hungry bosses, and the obese.

High blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, extensive economic losses across society, the list goes on and on. These things cost society as a whole far more than smoking, but somehow it gets singled out as the one evil everyone can agree on to tax, tax, and tax some more.

If people really want to increase the government's tax revenue to pay for rising health care costs, tax the largest segment of the population causing the most problems with disabilities and long term health problems - obesity.

Who's ready for their monthly weigh in at the county office?

We need to get government out of our private lives. This sounds like a good place to start.

I was thinking of some other choice words, but sanctimonious is nicer.