I love you all. From your encrusted spitoons to your dusty plaid flannel shirts to your foul-smelling hog farms…from your run-down Chevy trucks to your camoflauge hunting outfits to your conveniently-placed gun racks. This Missouri urbanite thanks you from the bottom of my heart and (most importantly) my tobacco-lovin’ lungs.
Those dirty, no-good, holier-than-thou, I-know-better-than-you, self-important meddlers in the big cities thought they’d try to pass a 55 cent per pack cigarette tax. A tax that would cost every pack-a-day smoker, rich or poor, over $200 per year. A tax you said was necessary to offset costs to the state from smoking…necessary because you sqandered our share of the tobacco settlement. A tax you said was necessary to curb smoking…necessary because you can’t keep your fucking noses out of our business.
You thought it would pass easily. You spent $4.8 million on your effort to pass it, while it’s opponents spent not even 2% of that figure. You figured the 66% of Missourians who don’t smoke would jump on the chance to tax the hell out of the 33% who do with vindictive glee. You didn’t bank on the turnout of rural voters to stop your fiendish plan. So I say to the cigarette tax proponents…
HA-HA-FUCKING-HA, YOU SORRY FUCKING SONS OF BITCHES!!! THAT’LL TEACH YOU TO FUCK WITH THE SMOKERS, WE’VE FUCKING HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR LIES AND PROPAGANDA. FUCK OFF ONCE AND FOR ALL. BEFORE YOU GO, HERE, LET ME STICK A BIG FAT CIGAR UP YOUR HEALTH-FASCIST ASS, MAYBE IT WILL LOOSEN YOU UP A BIT, YOU TEA-TOTALING WHELPS OF A CRACK WHORE!!
I don’t smoke but I’m right there with you. I just love how most states have spent their tobacco settlement dollars. You know, directly improving the health of taxpayers by, you know, building roads and such.
Saving you $200 a year? You mean the money for your cigarettes is automatically deducted from your income? You have no choice but to buy cigarettes? Completely powerless?
I’m trying really hard to figure out how you lie about a tax hike on product.
Maybe the tax only applies to ciggies rolled on alternate thrusdays on months with a full moon where 35 year old virgins named Maurice have group sex with 3 Penthouse girls and a incontenent llama?
Why is a lie? Because the goverrrnment doesn’t really want smokers to quit. The government wants the smokers to continue smoking to put more money in the govt. coffers.
If the government wanted people to quit, they would not phase in these tax hikes. They’d slap on the .55 or however much they've decided at one time. Instead they, phase in the tax .10 at a time over two years so that smokers will continue to buy.
At least you got to vote on it. In Oregon, the legislature and Govenor Dr.“Never met a tax he didn’t like” Kitzaber just add it on without even consulting the people. Of course, yes, they are spending the Tobacco money on, you guessed it, NOT tobacco realted expenses.
Fuck Them! And good for Missourians…(Is that right?)
I think you missed part of my point, though. The concept that one is somehow compelled to buy the damned things, that someone is completely powerless…has no choice but to shell out the money…is confusing to me.