Did you hear that the taxes on all tobacco products went up a lot last week? The federal tax on a package of cigarettes went from around .50 to about $1.10. This was done for a couple reasons, to fund health care for children, and to get more people to quit smoking. My question is how do you feel about this?
I don't like it, now I am all for people quitting smoking but I don't like the government vilifying a group of people and then raising taxes on them; and if the government really was concerned about our well being why not prohibit alcohol again, it certainly causes more problems than tobacco, how about pornography, a much larger plague on the world than cigarettes. I see this as just one more way the government is squeezing as much money out of the public as possible, and that I am against.
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About Me
- Jamon
- We got married on February 7, 2009 in the St. George,UT temple and are currently living in Provo, UT. We enjoy watching movies together and certain TV shows, Heroes and 24 are our favorites. We love each other so much and look forward to every minute we can be together.
4 comments:
After having lived in a smokey apartment complex while pregnant/with a newborn who later developed asthma problems, I am not against the rise of taxes on cigarettes. And the fact that it is going to help with children's health care makes perfect sense to me; children are more often the victims of secondary smoke in comparison to adults.
I see your point in the singling out of one group, and all of that, but I just feel so passionately against smoking that I can't help but feel like that is being justly dealt with.
A couple of thoughts in the role of devil's advocate. Humor me.
#1 - You state that pornography is a greater problem world-wide than smoking. I would just like to point out that global tobacco sales FAR surpass pornography sales. Also, I think it's a logical fallacy to state that pornography is worse than smoking. Per capita - if we were able to measure this - I would gaurantee that smoking adversely affects more people than pornography.
#2 - Additionally, it may be worthwhile to note that members of the church can hold temple recommends with pornography addictions but not smoking addictions. This would suggest to me that even in our "world", smoking is as serious if not more serious than pornography.
#3 - How would you tax something more (like pornography) when there is such a clear substitute for paid pornography in the form of internet downloading for free. If you tax smoking, addicts have no other choice if they want their tobacco fix but to buy tobacco, but if you tax porn, porn addicts will find it for free or through means by which it is impossible to tax.
Just a couple of thoughts.
Yep. Dont like the singling out.
First its cigarettes than its chocolate...THAT would really make me mad!
But really, they did the same thing with ammo (because all people who shoot guns will some day be killers you know). They didn't hike up the taxes, but the actual price of anything ammo related. That is sad.
Jamee
Question. When are you going to UPDATE??
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