enthalpy

Monday, February 12, 2007


Smokers pay taxes. Governments raise taxes on smokes. People quit smoking. Governments make less money.
Across the country, states are putting their own treasuries under pressure with anti-smoking policies and higher cigarette taxes. The better these measures work, the fewer smokers are left to pay; in 2005, states levied taxes on 2.8 billion fewer packs than just five years earlier.

Smoker taxes have been a small but critical source of cash in recent years, as all but a handful of states jacked up their tobacco taxes. Minnesota, for example, slapped an extra 75-cent charge on a pack of cigarettes to solve a budget problem two years ago; the state expects to collect about $451 million from smokers this year.
Ok, so even if EVERYONE quit smoking and there were no smoking related costs to the public health system, there would still be a huge shortage. The per pack INCOME has nothing to do with the guy the state's treating for emphysema. All this does for the State is a loss of income. Pretty soon they'll be $100 a pack, and some state legislator will think that's a great idea. Not to mention what it does to the pirating efforts from states with less than Draconian statutes.



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