South Carolina Takes Aim
This past Sunday, The Charleston Post and Courier newspaper wrote an editorial saying that the state of South Carolina should increase its taxes on cigarette tobacco from 7 cents to more than 171 percent, or $1.27 per pack.
The newspaper said the money generated from the increased tax on the people who can least afford to be taxed would be used to pay for health care. The newspaper says that by raising the taxes, the state gains new revenue and at the same time reduces the number of people smoking.
The latter claim is fraudulent. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that hiking taxes on cigarettes reduces the numbers of smokers. Older smokers may retire their cigarettes, but there are many more young people who will pay the tax to fill the gap. You never hear about how many are beginning smokers, compared to those who quit because they can no longer afford to smoke.
So, what the newspaper is saying is that it is all right to balance the health care books on the backs of smokers, especially those smokers who can no longer afford to pay higher taxes. The taxes create astounding problems for the poor, and not just in the pocketbook. Instead of quitting, they resort to black market sources. The ripple effect of higher crime and family abuse also rises.
And it is simply wrong for states and their bum politicians to punish smokers in social engineering when they are too mealy mouthed and weak kneed to face the real problem confronting states and the nation: how to balance runaway budgets because the politicians helped load the getaway cars with tons of tax money. And we know who was driving the cars: bankers, Wall Street investors, and hedge fund operatives. I call these folks financial terrorists and insurgents.
If this idiocy doesn’t stop, you won’t be able to sit in your own home and smoke.
Here is where you can find the Post and Courier. Read it for yourself and decide what your next move is.
Just follow the money!
The reasons these bureaucrats give are always public related, when in fact it is just to increase the control over the citizens and fill their pockets with tax dollars. We need to fire them all.