I will have to admit... that at one time in my life I was an evil man. Yes, you guessed it. I used to smoke those evil things called cigarettes.
I quit for health reasons, but, I also quit because I wanted to. I don't believe in telling others to quit. If they so choose it is their right. It is not the right of others (whether it be a person or the government) to force a group to quit something that is perfectly legal.
So, to the real issue at hand. Today, I discovered that the federal tax on cigarettes is going to more than doubled from $0.30 a pack to $1.01 a pack. That's a $0.62 increase! This means that in Massachusetts alone a pack will now cost around $8.00. Its simply absurd.
Now why am I so upset? Besides I quit and I no longer buy cigarettes so this doesn't affect me. The reason why I am upset is how this tax came about. This tax was included in legislation for SCHIP. The idea of granting more health insurance coverage to children (even those whose parents can afford it). Nowhere was it discussed in the media as to how this would be funded and for some odd reason no one hears about this increase until days before its put in effect. Therefore, we live in a society in which the government can arbitrarily tax you without letting you know. I thought our president promised more transparency. I guess not!
The other issue I have is how laughable the double speak is here. On the one hand they want to punish those who smoke in the hopes that they will quit. Yet, they need people to keep smoking in order to pay for this legislation. So which is it? Do we need people to smoke or not? Does the government have a genuine interest in our health or do they just want money? I think they just want our money... which is horrible because we can no longer afford these taxes.
As a side note there was a government which did try to get everyone to quit smoking for the health of the nation. I believe it was those National Socialists under ummm what was his name... oh yeah... Hitler!
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