The Libs are at it again!

New federal tax on cigarettes, $1.60 per pack. Takes effect April 1st! Really ticks me off, even the Chinese allow their peasants to smoke.

Our gran kids won't even remember when this was a free country!

Does anyone have any tobacco seeds?

And, that is just the start of it. In New York State, Gov. Paterson is looking at an obesity tax on soft drinks. Others are in the works.

mikeandgerry wrote:And, that is just the start of it. In New York State, Gov. Paterson is looking at an obesity tax on soft drinks. Others are in the works.

Every time I mentioned how the new PA law about no smoking in restaurants was unfair and I'd suggest food was next people would laugh at me. Some parts of California already have regulations regarding how many fast food restaurants can be built and I believe there is one law in one county or city there that requires local grocery stores to carry certain healthy items. e.g if you want to run a local grocery you have to carry fruits and vegetables whether people buy it or not.

Move over cigarettes smokers, those of you that like hamburgers are next.

Richard S. wrote:

mikeandgerry wrote:And, that is just the start of it. In New York State, Gov. Paterson is looking at an obesity tax on soft drinks. Others are in the works.

Every time I mentioned how the new PA law about no smoking in restaurants was unfair and I'd suggest food was next people would laugh at me. Some parts of California already have regulations regarding how many fast food restaurants can be built and I believe there is one law in one county or city there that requires local grocery stores to carry certain healthy items. e.g if you want to run a local grocery you have to carry fruits and vegetables whether people buy it or not.

Move over cigarettes smokers, those of you that like hamburgers are next.

I recall having the same thoughts six years ago when the NY ban on restaurant smoking went into effect. There are several rebels nearby who let anyone smoke in their respective rural establishments. They will tell you: If you don't like it you can leave! They have been doing it for about six years without objection or citation.

NYC has had a ban on serving transfats in restaurants for two years.

mikeandgerry wrote:
NYC has had a ban on serving transfats in restaurants for two years.

My understanding of the reasons for its use is that it's cheap, makes things taste good and probably most important to the food industry is it has a long shelf life. I don't know if what replaced it has all those attributes but if it doesn't then it's costing the consumer money. It may be helping some people live healthier lives but I don't eat many donuts myself or a lot of other things that may contain it so for me it doesn't do anything but drive the costs up. Even if the replacement does have all those attributes there is still the initial cost.

Frankly I'm getting tired of the "Nanny" mentality many of these politicians have, let the market make these decisions and leave it up to people. If trans fats are bad for you and someone can produce a donut that's just as good and just as cheap to produce donut makers will make them and people will seek them out. We don't need the government making that decision.

Getting back to the cigarette tax many will argue that cigarette smokers are putting an undo burden on others because of the health costs... the same is true of people that don't eat healthy, people that engage in risky behavior like mountain climbing or sky diving, people that drink a lot, people that don't wear their seatbelts etc.

The way things are going the government is going to tax and over regulate anything that can be deemed bad for you and won't be happy until we're all safely in a plastic bubble.

Hate to spoil the self-pity party but have any of you tried to buy life insurance lately in your "free market"? Just about every question those free-market insurance actuarial types ask you has to do with a risk factor having a direct statistical correlation to life expectancy. Smoker? You'll pay higher rates, if they write the policy at all, due to the cancer and cardiac risks. How much do you weigh? There's a demonstrable correlation between obesity and type 2 diabetes. High LDL? Heart risk. And so on it goes, as the same policy becomes more and more expensive as your high-risk behaviors get tallied up.

And all these things that make your life insurance more expensive or impossible to buy in the "free market" are exactly the same public health factors that governments pay for even now, and that's BEFORE universal health insurance.

Now, we know that you so-called "libertarians" hate the government intervening in your "personal decisions," like whether or not to wear seat-belts and motorcycle helmets. But it's all essentially the same analysis: if you get racked up and wind up in a hospital without health coverage, all of us get to pay for your "freedom of choice." So there's no more wrong with taxing it to make it more expensive than there is with telling kids they can't drink and drive; in either case, you're trying to discourage a preventable behavior with a downside cost that the community shouldn't have to bear. In one instance, you outlaw it, in the other, you tax it.

Think about it: should people be "free" to use opium? And, if they do, should we give them health care? Food? Shelter? The government intervening to influence our choices isn't some new "lib" trick; it's as old as time.

I go to Delaware once a month to get cigs and any other thing that is over $500, it adds up in tax savings over time. It's 30 miles to Del for me.
Ray

stockingfull,
While I agree with everything you're saying, there is a problem. The taxes and lawsuit money that was supposed to go to prevention of smoking instead went to pet projects of the politicians. If you are going to attach a premium to risky behavior that premium money should go to either preventing that behavior or off-setting the cost of treating it. Do you agree? If so, how do we insure that the extra money goes where it should? I don't trust the government to spend my money wisely as it is. I'm not sure that giving them more money and more control will do any good.

warm now wrote:If you are going to attach a premium to risky behavior that premium money should go to either preventing that behavior or off-setting the cost of treating it. Do you agree? If so, how do we insure that the extra money goes where it should?

In a word, yes.

The habitual invasion of trust funds set up for contingencies is a serious problem in all forms of finance, whether governmental, organizational or even individual. I suppose that, if we can buy annuities to "protect" our funds from ourselves, our gov'ts could too.

BTW, I think many states do such things with lottery income. In theory, they use it for education. But even that can be deceptive, because then the legislatures just reduce the funds they would be appropriating for education and it nets out to be the same....

Smokers put a risk to others around them, leave their butts everywhere( just look around any parking lot, they use it to empty their ash trays), resturants have to combat the filth that the smoke causes. Drinkers only put others at risk if they drive. Fat people only put others at risk if they sky-dive!

samhill wrote:Fat people only put others at risk if they sky-dive!

My buddy and I both quit smoking. I was a Marlboro Red smoker. Sometimes we get in a conversation and describe the entire process of buying a pack of cigarettes and lighting that first delicious one. Just for a laugh. The price is a good deterrant for me, 30 cents apiece for a tiny piece of a leaf?
And by the way, the government is happy to have smoking citizens, that's five or ten years less social security they have to pay out per smoker.

I couldn't agree more.

stockingfull wrote:Hate to spoil the self-pity party but have any of you tried to buy life insurance lately in your "free market"? Just about every question those free-market insurance actuarial types ask you has to do with a risk factor having a direct statistical correlation to life expectancy. Smoker? You'll pay higher rates, if they write the policy at all, due to the cancer and cardiac risks. How much do you weigh? There's a demonstrable correlation between obesity and type 2 diabetes. High LDL? Heart risk. And so on it goes, as the same policy becomes more and more expensive as your high-risk behaviors get tallied up.

And all these things that make your life insurance more expensive or impossible to buy in the "free market" are exactly the same public health factors that governments pay for even now, and that's BEFORE universal health insurance.

Now, we know that you so-called "libertarians" hate the government intervening in your "personal decisions," like whether or not to wear seat-belts and motorcycle helmets. But it's all essentially the same analysis: if you get racked up and wind up in a hospital without health coverage, all of us get to pay for your "freedom of choice." So there's no more wrong with taxing it to make it more expensive than there is with telling kids they can't drink and drive; in either case, you're trying to discourage a preventable behavior with a downside cost that the community shouldn't have to bear. In one instance, you outlaw it, in the other, you tax it.

Think about it: should people be "free" to use opium? And, if they do, should we give them health care? Food? Shelter? The government intervening to influence our choices isn't some new "lib" trick; it's as old as time.

The government shouldn't be in the insurance business or any business.

The role of the gov is to ensure opportunity. The free market determines outcome. Liberals don't understand the difference.