Cigarette Tax Hike (Mexico: low income, find a job, school district)

[MovingOutOfNJ]

How do you feel about it??

[notkaplan]

Completely ridiculous. Our government is so currupt it refuses to manage its money, resources and manpower the right way. Our government is by far the most wasteful and unproductive government of all industrialized nations. Instead of raising even more taxes, they need to learn to stop throwing money out the window. The government tells people to stop smoking, which is why they spend millions on anti smoking campaigns, yet they want more tax mony from cigarrettes. It hasn't always been this bad, but the past 10 to 20 years, we have allowed everyone from the federal gov't to our local ones strip away our constitution- guaranteed freedoms; and waste OUR money at the same time.

[Vinny536]

i don't smoke but i have had enough of taxes. i wish i could just raise my salary like our government does.

[MovingOutOfNJ]

i do agree.. im tired of taxes myself, but on this issue i'm thrilled. I dont smoke and I hate how people smoke around me. I avoid Bar's and never go to the casino for this reason. I cant put up with it. So this tax doesnt bother me, but generally, they need to stop taxing for every little thing.

61scout: i may have to follow you out to PHX at some point.. i've visited twice and love it there, I'm hoping i can find a job out there and high-tail it out of W-B

[Wandering_Spirit]

For me this is more on the principle than anything else. While I do smoke and am hoping to quit I do not agree with the constant rising tax of cigarettes. I do think that smokers should show some courtesy to non smokers but that leads into a whole other thread. Keep in mind, also, once they tax this to the hilt and enough people do quit they will move onto something else - which most likely will be something the non smokers enjoy so then THEY will feel the pinch. I never agreed with the Sin Taxes anyway. It is almost the next closest thing to the Stamp Tax that the British enacted which our Founding Fathers found so disagreeable.

[The Commish]

I fully agree with this tax.

Now, it's a consumption tax-- it's necessarily regressive. Regressive taxes affect poor people more than progressive taxes, so it's odd that I, a staunch liberal, so strongly support it. But, I think people have to remember that government spending is very progressive (due to the nature of government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, infrastructure improvements, education, and so on). So we should really be looking at any ways to generate revenue in order to expand these programs (or perhaps stave off cuts to them).

I also hate breathing second-hand smoke, so hopefully the tax increase will have a deterrent effect on consumption. To that end, the tax should be ten times what is now! Let's really price cigarettes out of reach for many people. Or if the tobacco lobby wasn't as strong as it is today, and if large tobacco producing states weren't such important "swing states" in the general election, I'd say let's just ban the things like we do other addictive drugs.

[MovingOutOfNJ]

Originally Posted by The Commish

I also hate breathing second-hand smoke, so hopefully the tax increase will have a deterrent effect on consumption. To that end, the tax should be ten times what is now! Let's really price cigarettes out of reach for many people. Or if the tobacco lobby wasn't as strong as it is today, and if large tobacco producing states weren't such important "swing states" in the general election, I'd say let's just ban the things like we do other addictive drugs.

My Vote is $30 a pack ;-) (not a carton... i said a pack lol)

Banning it is ok with me too. But thats not all that fair lol.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by The Commish

government spending is very progressive (due to the nature of government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, infrastructure improvements, education, and so on) .

And the government has shown good performance in these packages despite the massive spending and taxes? If you're definition of progressive is creating massive spending bills that progressively get more expensive with little or no benefit then you hit the nail on the head.

Someone mentioned government waste above and that is where they need to start, clean out their own closet first.... An example I often cite is my own experience with government waste. When I was delivering coal I was part of the LIHEAP program which gives assistance to low income families. You had to deal with the local county assistance office, filling out paperwork for each one.

I dealt with 5 counties, every year each one would send me a 100 to 150 page booklet detailing the regulations for the program. That's 5 booklets I would receive. My best guesstimate is that each one cost at least $30 to create and distribute. I was only one fuel dealer, times that by thousands state wide.

I'd say let's just ban the things like we do other addictive drugs

That's worked out quite well hasn't it? Crime, addiction and all the bad things associated with or caused by illegal drugs has been completely eliminated.

[The Commish]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

And the government has shown good performance in these packages despite the massive spending and taxes? If you're definition of progressive is creating massive spending bills that progressively get more expensive with little or no benefit then you hit the nail on the head.

In terms of "good performance," I think it depends on the perspective from which you're asking the question. Compared to the libertarian approach (with privatized everything), I would say generally yes, given that we have things like public roads, schools, infrastructure, health and other government programs, and so on. These programs do benefit people who wouldn't otherwise. But compared to other industrialized nations, then no, given that we lag behind those them in each of those categories. But that's not a refutation of government spending; it's an indictment of our particular story.

Originally Posted by thecoalman

Someone mentioned government waste above and that is where they need to start, clean out their own closet first.... An example I often cite is my own experience with government waste. When I was delivering coal I was part of the LIHEAP program which gives assistance to low income families. You had to deal with the local county assistance office, filling out paperwork for each one.

I dealt with 5 counties, every year each one would send me a 100 to 150 page booklet detailing the regulations for the program. That's 5 booklets I would receive. My best guesstimate is that each one cost at least $30 to create and distribute. I was only one fuel dealer, times that by thousands state wide.

Sounds like inefficiency to me! I say computerize the regulations and distribute them digitally.

Problem solved.

Originally Posted by thecoalman

That's worked out quite well hasn't it? Crime, addiction and all the bad things associated with or caused by illegal drugs has been completely eliminated.

That's quite a lofty goal to reach, wouldn't you say?

I think we should work towards those goals, but I don't think anyone thinks completely eliminating "the bad things associated with illegal drugs" is a realistic public policy goal. So, that's hardly an accurate representation of the argument. Significant reductions in those "bad things" are possible, however. And I think it's worthwhile to pursue that with tobacco products.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by The Commish

Sounds like inefficiency to me! I say computerize the regulations and distribute them digitally.

Or maybe just send one to each fuel dealer? Certainly would not be hard to do. In any event our government is the model of inefficiency, more taxes are not going to solve anything but instead will just create more and larger bureaucracies where money seems to disappear down a black hole. They need to instead become efficient and use the money they have more prudently.

You mention roads yet they are crumbling, you also mention schools yet they are fialing as well and it's not becuse of lack of funding.

Interesting article here where they basically threw a blank check at a district in Kansas, didn't help:

Money And School Performance: Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment
For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, "You can't solve educational problems by throwing money at them." The education establishment and its supporters have replied, "No one's ever tried." In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.


Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.



The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.