I heard on a tv talk show a couple months ago that people were upset that President Obama was breaking his promise of not taxing people who made under $250k a year. Because he approved the cigarette tax, critics were saying that he broke his promise since most smokers earned under $250k a year (I think they said it was like less than 5% of smokers earned over $250k a year), the average 2 pack a day smoker was now paying $735 ($1 a pack x 2 packs a day x 365 days). There was a ton of analysis. What jumped out at me that if Dad and Mom made minimum wage and both smoked 2 packs a day, then they were paying approximately 10% of their pay towards the new sin tax, not counting the $5 a pack they were already paying for the smokes.
I remember about 10 years ago when Cleveland imposed a "sin tax" on cigarettes to help pay the cost of Jacob's Field. Smokers didn't mind pay the extra money until they learned that smoking wasn't allowed in the new baseball stadium. I wonder how many smokers "smoked more" to help pay for a new stadium, only to find out they were banned from smoking in it?
I just heard on the news today that the owners of the Columbus Blue Jackets are lobbying for a sin tax on alcohol and cigarettes to help the city buy the arena they play in. Budweiser has a brewery here, and they are against this, as are so many bars and restaurants. With the economy as bad as it, and with alcohol and food sales down, they are all afraid that their sales will slip if this sin tax is passed. Again, they want to go after the smokers to pay for something, and this time they are going after the beer drinkers too!
One last thing I saw about a month ago. So many studies have said that smoking costs companies extra money to pay for health insurance. A new study said that smoking actually reduced health insurance costs because smoking kills so many people, that a non smoker might live to 80 and a smoker might only live until 60. So if you smoke, you might actually save your company money since they won't have to pay for your health insurance for as many years.
I need to stop watching tv and listening to news reports as it all drives me crazy! LOL!
My Milage:My Quit Date: 8/20/2008
Smoke-Free Days: 282
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 11,280
Amount Saved: $2,256.00
Life Gained:Days: 42
Hrs: 4
Mins: 3
Seconds: 1