(04-07-2009 12:12 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(04-07-2009 10:30 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Obama will have LOTS of supporters when his energy/tax/environmental plans doubles your electric bill this summer.

Anecdote: I was visiting some friends, the kind of people who the liberal elite would sneeringly dismiss as "rednecks" (clinging to..., oh, you know the rest), and the new cigarette tax had just been added.

They were both very angry, as they are both smokers, and (this may surprise some of the liberal elitists), both individuals who were willing to wait and see, to give him a chance, to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Quote: "I thought he wasn't going to raise taxes on poor people. Doesn't he know that most smokers are poor people?"

I'm all for higher cigarette taxes, but think the money should be aimed directly at smoking cessation programs/healthcare for past smokers. I don't like using "sin" taxes (by that I specifically mean any tax meant to try and reduce consumption of a particular product because of its deleterious impact to society) as revenue sources for expenditures which are not directly related because that creates a conflict of interest for the government -- revenue vs reduced consumption. By aiming such revenues directly at the elimination of such impacts, the revenues and the need for expenditures sunset together.