PROMISES, PROMISES: Obama tax pledge up in smoke

when that extra buck goes to pay for a completely unrealted program, it is a sad day. it is reckless to tax smokers to pay for children's health care. it unfairly targets one group.

Sorry, but I'd rather see relief for children without proper healthcare than for smokers. And I'm not even vehemently anti-smoking, I've had my share of cigs over the years.

As I've said before, this is just the first thing that will be taxed heavily. If they don't raise enough revenue through taxing cigarettes what will be next? Alcohol or Fast Food joints? Both are detrimental to your health. Expect more taxes! Electricty, cable TV, you name it they can tax it.

Again -- I'm not opposed to booze, smokes, or even the occasional Whopper. But I wouldn't complain if they levied a $1 tax on alcohol or fast food. Both are luxuries, and both have a relatively high cost to society.

Agio,

When all the luxuries have been over-taxed to the extent that most Americans can't afford them, what will be taxed next in order to maintain a steady flow of money to maintain the government programs? I really don't care if the government raises taxes on cigs, booze, or fast food either. What worries me is that when the government can't raise enough money from those things to maintain the programs because most of the people I know can't afford $100 for a carton of cigs, what comes next?

that would make more sense than spending the money on children's health care.

when you pay a gas tax you generally are paying for upkeep on the roads. If you don't drive, you don't use the roads and you don't pay the tax. of course govt is so screwed up they dip into gas tax funds for other things and then complain that they don't have enough money to fix the roads...but that is another issue. the way taxes should work is that they are collected for a purpose related to where it is collcted from. children don't smoke so why should smokers pay for thier health care? how about people with kids pay for kid's health care? that way single and childless people don't have to pay to take care of everyone else's kids.

How about if we put a tax on smokers such that every single penny that is spent in the treatment of cigarette-related illnesses comes out of the pockets of the smokers?

Actually smokers and other risk takers tend to die before availing themselves to a lot of health care dollars. They fund their own health care plus the health care of many others with the taxes they pay.

Smokers tend to die before they use health care dollars?

My bad, here I thought there were a lot of people with emphysema and cancer and other diseases that are attributable to them smoking. Here I thought that there were other people with illnesses that can be attributed to someone else smoking in their vicinity.

My mistake. How altruistic of all the smokers that they are not only funding their own health care but everyone else's as well.

I did indeed read somewhere that smokers, for the most part, do not linger. Lung cancer, for instance, doesn't let you hang around very long and there is little treatment, expensive or otherwise. Emphyzema isn't as quickly fatal but isn't particularly expensive to manage either. I'll try to find a reference for you.

You're going to find a reference saying that cigarette smokers don't rack up big medical bills? Really?

Good luck with that. Good grief.

Here you go.

Health care costs for smokers at a given age are as much as 40 percent higher than those for nonsmokers, but in a population in which no one smoked the costs would be 7 percent higher among men and 4 percent higher among women than the costs in the current mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers...

Conclusions: If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs.

I stand corrected, Waynester. My apologies for not believing you.

I do have to pick on this article a little, though. They fail to take into account the fact that someone who lives longer will also work longer. I wonder if having a longer earning period would somewhat offset the costs of old age.

This article also does not take into consideration the health care costs of people who become sick because of their association with smokers. You would definitely have to include those costs in determining the overall health care costs of smoking.

But thank you for the link, Waynester. Smiles!

One study does not an argument make. Here is another, more balanced viewpoint:

Whether smoking adds to or subtracts from aggregate medical expenditures remains a matter of dispute. A series of studies has produced contradictory results, reflecting differences in the studies' underlying assumptions, methods, and data. The most recent published analysis essentially supported the original conclusion of Leu and Schaub that the net cost is effectively zero, but critiques of the new study have found important flaws in it. In another prominent analysis, Hodgson concluded that smoking did add significantly to the net health care costs of the US. He even found that net smoking related expenditures might be positive during the years of senior citizenship (65 and older). Hodgson's seemingly contrarian finding resulted in part because he considered all of smokers' medical costs associated with consumption of cigarettes, not merely those associated with the principal smoking related diseases (cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Studies that have found no significant impact on net costs have limited consideration to these major smoking related diseases.

No such study ever compares the expenditures to the number of people benefiting from them. The entire reason that old age expenditures unrelated to smoking might balance out earlier (and concurrent) smoking related expenditures is that smoking ensures that there are fewer people around to utilise health care services! If, instead of comparing aggregate expenditures, one asked how per capita expenditures compare with and without smoking, one would likely find that per capita expenditures are considerably greater with smoking than without it. The net cost perspective also ignores how much people contribute to the health care system, through taxes and insurance premiums. Because a disproportionate number of smokers die young, their contributions to health care funding sources are smaller than those of longer lived non-smokers.

Kenneth E. Warner. The economics of tobacco: myths and realities. Tobacco control 9 (2000:Spring): 78-89. Available online (subscription may be required): http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/9/1/78#SEC3

But thank you for the link, Waynester. Smiles!

No worries, smiles back!

it's a "sin" tax. buying a yahct has a luxury tax. cigarettes/alcohol taxes are sin taxes.

did you read the article? there are many instances where Obama stated that taxes outside of just income taxes would not increase for those less than 250K$. even taking out that this hits lower income families more, he still raised taxes of more than just the rich.

And his cap and trade carbon tax will tax everyone who uses energy. That is to say, everyone. Some estimate that it will raise the cost of energy by about 40%. I hope you Obamatrons enjoy it. I hope you at least got a kiss...

Pssst cap and trade was left out of the budget, it's dead for now... neither side of the aisle supports it... find something else to complain about.

it's dead for now

Key words: for now

find something else to complain about.

An easier task has never been assigned.

I still think it's nit-picky. Buying cigarettes is voluntary.

Yes, and if everyone quits how will the government fund children's health care? What would they tax next? It's just the beginning.

Is that why he's increasing The Tax on Gasoline and Electricity? Keep defending the thief and liar, go ahead.

if this is about getting people to stop smoking, then where will the money come to fund children's health care? this is why you don't tax one group to pay for another. if cigarette tax money goes to a smoking health crare program, less smokers equals less money brought in by tax but also less money required to pay for the program.

what happens now if smokers start quitting? children lose their health care program. does that make any sense?

A professional demonstration of how to create chaos professor?

That's the point I've been trying to make for years. The Federal government puts itself in the middle of a moral conundrum with this BS. What of the Federally funded quit-smoking programs? Are they in fact immoral due to the effect of decreasing funding for children's healthcare?

It's a moral tax. Dems like to push their morals on everyoine. It's ok to tax smokers because smoking is a bad habit, we say so. Itll get real bad with Universal Healthcare. The excuse for you not being allowed to eat a cheeseburger will be "Society" has to pay for your Obesenss. We will go after booze finally with really high taxes. That kills more than anything.

Umm, Bush is no longer the President ;-).