Do you think it's fair for Gov to raise the tax on cigarettes 75c a pack

[Tweed]

http://www.southernillinoisan.com/

A little poll the Southern Illinoisan is conducting on their front page. Post your thoughts here. As a non-smoker, of course I'm biased about raising funds from products I never use.

[Mojambo]

1. If all of the money goes to fund health care initiatives

Sure.

[havocmom]

3. second that

'sin taxes' are OK if they pay for costs incured by the substance being taxed. Smoking raises the cost of health care. We need to discourage kids from getting hooked in the first place then it will be over with. Tax it big.

[boneygrey]

2. NO

Hell no!:smoke:

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[illini]

5. The tax would be raise for a building project i believe.

And Hell no. :smoke: Smokers already pay enough for our vice. How about a 50$ tax on sky divers.

[LSK]

6. i think its fair

Its a source of revenue and it might make a few people quit. Ive never been a smoker so I dont see a downside to it.

[Radical Activist]

7. How much should they have to pay for giving me an asthma attack

when I go out? Yes, they deserve it. Fuck 'em.

[fit4life]

16. Wow, that's intelligent.

I don't smoke around nonsmokers, so keep your nose out of MY right to smoke.

[Radical Activist]

23. I'm fine with a public smoking ban

That sounds like what you're talking about. That would solve the problem.

[DrGonzoLives]

8. I love taxes

which will have more of an effect on the poor. Love that regressive taxation, yes sir.

[seventythree]

9. just as as long as we raise an equal amount on all "sin"

-- if we are raising the tax on a beer an equivalent amount, I'm ok with it. The problem now, is the high taxes are making smoking an "elitist" activity. People drive a Lexus or wear designer clothes to appear "rich" -- now, it will be the same with smoking. The tax needs to go to paying medicaid bills, imo.

[renaissanceguy]

10. I see no harm.

Nobody is being denied their right to smoke. There is no ban on smoking in Illinois, so you are still free to do it in most places. I agree with an earlier post that said a tax would be acceptable if it goes toward healthcare initiatives. However, I do not see it likely, considering our federal government's tax breaks to the rich. The states are more scarce in resources. Just look at your state tax returns.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.14744291

[SemiCharmedQuark]

11. Could be worse. In England cigs are 9 dollars a pack at the moment.

My SO's mom is going crazy. She's having him buy a as many as he can from the duty free shop when he heads back to England this weekend.

[Padraig18]

12. Until they pass a tax on Big Macs, yes.

I'm tired of having MY vice taxed all to hell when all the grossly-overweight people who clog up their arteries with deep-fried, super-sized glop from McDonald's are responsible for just as much (if not more) of the health-care costs in this country. Yeah, yeah, I know the money's going toward road construction, but still...

:argh::smoke:

[Placebo]

13. NO

They're expensive enough as is. :cry:

[CubsFan1982]

14. Absolutely.

To me, it's like a tax on willful ignorance. You know smoking is bad for you, yet you continue to do it. A lot of smokers evidently think that their lives are worth it, maybe they won't feel that their wallets are.

[seventythree]

18. yah, like eating meat

[CubsFan1982]

19. Yeah, that's a real good comparison.

Not. Eating meat in moderation, which carnivores and omnivores have done for untold eons to SURVIVE, as opposed to inhaling the fumes of a burning tube of tobacco into one's lungs which causes various forms of cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and ultimately, death. That's the dumbest statement I've ever seen. Have you been drinking the Freeper kool-aid?

[seventythree]

24. you don't need to eat meat to survive

any more than a smoker needs to smoke to survive, although it has benefits for Alzheimer's patients.

[Radical Activist]

22. Eating meat doesn't make the person next to you fat.

Smoking does hurt the people around you, so the comparison is weak.

[seventythree]

25. but it does kill the cow,

an individual smoking in the privacy of his/her own home, doesn't hurt anyone but themselves -- hope you aren't a driver.

[CubsFan1982]

27. Since when do cows vote?

Smoking kills PEOPLE. I'd be more concerned with the state of my own species rather than crying a river over a goddamn cow.

[seventythree]

32. I don't like Big Daddy trying to protect me from myself

-- I'm too libertarian for that. Smokers need to respect the air space of non-smokers, beyond that, live and let live. Smokers die earlier and according to studies I've seen, actually save money for society.

[DrGonzoLives]

28. So you like regressive taxes?

Just curious.

How about a Clean Air Tax on non-smokers that would provide funds that help smokers quit? No, wait, that would be unfair, of course. We must punish those whose behavior we don't like, not help.

[CubsFan1982]

29. That's a crock, and you know it.

Clean air is not unhealthy to those who breathe it. Carcinogenic smoke is. If you can find an effective program that helps smokers quit, fine. Raise my income taxes or the sales tax or whatever, and I'll be happy to pay for it. But I don't think such a program exists. Until that's a reality, smokers should have to pay for the burden they add to our already overwhelmed health care system.

[DrGonzoLives]

30. What about fat people?

After all, they overeat, have bad diets, in general, and thus have higher risks for diabetes, heart problems, etc., that also overburdens our health care system.

Or people with genetic defects that in some way will lead to them needing more health care, from physical deformities to something like, again, diabetes. Maybe they should pay a life tax?

Just admit that you support regressive taxation to enforce a moral standard.

[CubsFan1982]

31. You're comparing apples and oranges.

As has been said before, fat people don't encourage other people to be fat, nor do people with genetic defects encourage others to have genetic defects. This is not a moral standard, I could really care less if one wants to smoke themselves to death. It's their right. But there ought to be consequences, and I would resent having to pay more in sales tax or income tax to support their habit without any form of treatment, same as I would with any other drug. Smokers (and obese people, to some extent), by and large, are otherwise healthy, able-bodied people capable of holding a job or otherwise earning a living. People with genetic defects may not be so lucky. Their condition is forced upon them by nature and circumstance. But one is not born a smoker, and their condition, until the final phase of it, does not preclude them from contributing to society. Why should we tax otherwise healthy people, or unhealthy people whose condition is brought on by circumstance? That's what you're advocating.

I am not interested in moral standards, I am interested in the health of the public. If an increase in the cigarette tax will help convince even one smoker that he or she needs to quit for their own sake or the sake of others, then I support it.

[DrGonzoLives]

34. You contradict yourself

"This is not a moral standard, I could really care less if one wants to smoke themselves to death. It's their right. But there ought to be consequences..."

Consequences? Punishment? Sounds like the enforcement of a moral standard to me.

And since when do smokers "encourage" others to smoke? I never have in my life, in fact, I try to dissuade them from ever starting. So how does that play into it?

As for genetics, you can be born addicted to crack, people are born with a genetic tendency towards alcoholism...given the addictive qualities of nicotine, you really don't think that there is a gene floating around that might just make people want to smoke?

Furthermore, you seem to have this rosy idea that when taxes go up, people will just quit, like magic. As if it were the easiest thing to do in the world. News flash, it isn't, and those taxes sure as hell aren't going to help smokers quit.

Which leads to another point - if people do quit, and these taxes are needed for vital programs, then what? By raising taxes, you make the government itself addicted to nicotine.

[Radical Activist]

35. I think there should be no sales tax on necessities

like food and clothing. Sin-taxes are different. I realize quiting can be nearly impossible for some people, but cigarettes are still not a necessity of life.

[fit4life]

15. No way.

If he's going to balance the budget, the entire populace of Illinois should shoulder the burden, not just the ones who choose to partake of a perfectly legal drug.

Just as it's not right to balance the budget on the backs of state employees.

He needs to raise state income or sales taxes. Otherwise he's unjustly punishing a select few people in the state.

[Cuban_Liberal]

17. No. n/t

[benny05]

20. I'm Of Two Minds on This

I don't smoke anymore (I quit over 20 years ago) and actually I don't care for cigarette smoke very much, so I wish more people would quit. Taxing them I think might encourage some to quit, but not many. My objection has to do with what would happen to the revenues? This governor doesn't have my trust as it is on how money is spent. We have paid for a bunch of medicine we can't use, and he is slashing and burning public higher education budgets every year whereby some of the students may not be able to afford to pay the tuition increases, especially with Bush's proposal to cut the Perkins' loans, and scale back the number of Pell grants available.

So, I'm on the fence. I keep thinking this governor is a fox among the hens.

[RiDuvessa]

21. No.

I am not a smoker, but I feel that the taxes on cigarettes are high enough as it is. We already demonize people enough for partaking in a perfectly legal act. Smoking IS legal. If the government wants to stop shouldering the burden of the health care problems, then make it illegal. (Something I do not advocate.) I think that the state governments are being hypocrites, because the tax cigarettes, and sue the tobacco companies, and then turn around and make a profit off the sales.

[terrya]

26. What do these smokers want...a gasoline tax, instead?

The fact is, it's easier politically all around to raise taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. Blagojevich is in a very tough spot, budget wise. This is the most painless solution to raise revenue overall.

[seventythree]

33. but I don't think he is raising the tax on alcohol