That's an old saying......but it has some truth to it.
Some things that may happen could really come back to haunt all those who have pushed for smoking restrictions. And I'm gonna sit back and chuckle.
Let's lay a little groundwork here. The feds are considering two things. One is placing tobacco under the control of the FDA. Wow, that means they could really control the sale and use of tobacco even more than now. Believe the goal is to eliminate smoking entirely. Well, they are getting close. Since the 1960's the number of smokers in the US has gone from over 50% of the population to approximately 20%.
The feds also want to finance the SCHIP program with a 61 cent per pack increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes. That would make the fed tax $1 per pack. Bush has threatened a veto if that is the financing. Remember, this plan is not designed to help folks necessarily sick because of smoking. Typical! Need money for something, hit the smokers.
On one hand the government (in this case the feds) want more restrictions on tobacco, and yet they also want more money from smokers to finance non-smoking related issues.
Here's the kicker. Eventually there won't be enough smokers left. Where is all the money going to come from to finance all the things that the tobacco excise taxes have been paying for? It's going to come from either new taxes, increases in other existing taxes or reductions in governmental services.
On the state side, some of our legislators like to run and hide from addressing this question. Also on the state side in the past 6 years the number of packs sold annually has dropped each year so that now it is over 50 million packs less than 6 years ago. That's alot of money not collected. Check this out:
http://www.cityofshawnee.org/smoking/ResearchMaterials/10_Tax_Revenue.pdf
So, all the folks who have pushed for smoking restrictions and reducing the number of smokers..........rejoice........for now anyway. Eventually, you are going to have to spread your pocketbooks to make up what the smokers have been subsidizing all these years. Or, suck it up when services are cut back.
