Minnesota is going to add a whole dollar tax to a pack of smokes.
That’s great because there’s no way that a black market could emerge. Perhaps it is time for a War on Tobacco.
Forget taxes forcing people to quit; it ain’t gonna happen except for isolated cases. Wide spread posting of pictures of people with advanced oral, throat, and lung cancer MIGHT do it, but I tend to doubt it. Most smokers, and I include myself*, will be obstinate enough to continue smoking in the face of undoubted serious health risks, the government(s) might as wll profit from it.
*I did quit ten years back but I just had a chunk cut off my tongue last Friday. My oral surgeon is very pessimistic about the outlook, although the biopsy results won’t be known for another couple of days. It will be my fourth surgery for oral cancer, if it is malignant. I continued smoking through the first three.
LouisB, best wishes to you. I hope it turns out to be no big deal.
What about the amount of money the state has to shell out to cover smoker’s healthcare costs? I can’t find a cite, but I imagine if everyone quit smoking, it would save the government a tremendous amount of money in reduced expenditures for healthcare.
If one source of revenue dries up, they’ll find another.
Likewise. Hell, as an asthmatic, it would be worth it just to know I could go hear a band in a bar without having to leave 10 minutes later with an asthma attack.
Empirically false.
Granted, nicotine is a highly addictive drug; I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that it is more addictive than heroin.
Nonetheless, higher taxes will lead to reduced cigarrette consumption:
True. But cigarrette smokers also die sooner, thereby reducing their Social Security and Medicare benefits. Once taxes, medical expenses and reduced lifespans are taken into account, smokers tend to lose out, relative to nonsmokers of a similar income level.
This poster (who enjoys an occasional brew) is a fan of sin taxes.
I would rather the government tax harmful products and harmful activities (such as smoking, boozing and pollution) than useful activities (such as working and saving).
Don’t get me wrong. I support progressive taxation: once all taxes are factored in, taxes on the CEO should be higher than taxes on Joe Officeworker, IMHO. But one can jigger the income taxes to compensate for the greater burden that cigarette taxes impose on those with lower incomes.
You know, I’ve wondered on occasion if raising the price of smokes might have the opposite effect than desired. What if smoking becomes a status symbol-- a way to display wealth/disposable income?
Yep, $982 PER SECOND sounds like a really big deal. And the ticker on the RJ Reynolds page is certainly impressive. What gets me is that when the math was all done that $982 per second was only about a hundredth of what the government, across all levels, brings in! $2,758,144,370,000 / 365 / 24 / 60 / 60 = $3,644.17 PER SECOND. :eek:
I agree that “sin taxes” are pretty shitty ways of trying to deal with vices. Still, those same vices have a real impact on society so society, through their elected officials, should have some voice in the relationship.
Enjoy,
Steven
Ignoring the decrease in healthcare costs to support people who get sick from smoking and the cost to the economy from lost productivity from these same people, what would be the benefit to the economy if the money spent on smokes was spent on other things? How much revenue would the government actually lose? The money just doesn’t magically disappear.
I’m in California and buy all my smokes on the web. I have found a really great site called PaylessCigsOnline (you can find it easily with a search engine). I pay $2.81 per pack in carton purchases for Basic. They have great prices and the guys that own/run it are really nice. Check it out. 
I’m not so sure about that, being in southern California. Money disapppears all the time.
My first wife was a society. Opinionate, insufferable, fickle… what a bitch.
Come to Canada sometime. Where the money disappears into the black hole of government on a continuous basis. What do we end up with here in return? Things like frigates that list, submarines that spontaneously combust, long gun registries that have no discernable effect on crime other than to classify previously law abiding citizens as criminals, fountains in Shawinigan, and politicians who call you a redneck if you object to any of it.
This kills me. If you have a problem with smoking in a bar, take it up with the bar owner, don’t go crying to the government. The bar, for whatever reason, has decided that it can make more money allowing smoking than prohibiting it. If you don’t like it, take your business to an establishment that does not allow smoking. If they don’t have the music you like, then contact the bands and let them know your decision.
Wanting the government to step in and fix things is the surest way to make them worse.
Yeah, like WWII, the Interstate highway system, polio vaccinations, and the space program.
:wally
You haven’t shown that the highway system or the space program wouldn’t have been done better privately. You can definitely take polio off the list, and instead thank Jonas Salk and the University of Pittsburgh. In fact, Samuel Broder, former director of the National Cancer Institute, said, “If you had demanded that the N.I.H. solve the problem of polio not through independent, investigator-driven discovery research but by means of a centrally directed program, the odds are very strong that you would get the very best iron lungs in the world — portable iron lungs, transistorized iron lungs — but you wouldn’t get the vaccine that eradicated polio.” (West Wing stole his quote for a line in the show.) What government is best at is securing the rights and property of its citizens — things like war. But when those are aggressive, rather than defensive, it screws those up as well. Vietnam. Iraq. That sort of thing.
Limits interests to War machinery: check
Is bothered by gun restriction laws: check
Calls himself Uzi: check
Fails to mention anything positive that Canadians might get in return because all of them things are liberal, man, they’re gay and they marry each other for #^@# sakes!: check
You ARE a Redneck*
- no disrespect intended to Rednecks who think a Canadian Redneck is a contradictio in terminis.