jackofallgeeks | The government that steals from Peter to pay... Peter?

When given the choice between standing with big tobacco companies and standing with kids, I stand with America's children," said the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Sen. Max Baucus when presented with the fact that a proposed bill to fund health care for low-income individuals would be funded by an increased tax on low-income individuals. (Article.)

The implied premise being that raising taxes on cigarettes 61 cents constitutes "an increased tax on low-income individuals." Judging from the smokers I've known, and assuming many low-income individuals are also smokers, that premise holds. Smokers aren't going to quit because the cost raises. One of my smoker friends gleefully recited a comic (don't remember who, exactly) who said, "you could put them in black boxes with big red skulls on the front, call them Tumors, and charge $100 a box and we'd still smoke them by the case."

Sen. Baucus gives us a nice little sound bite that he can tote about for a couple years -- *I* think of the children, he tells us, not Big Tobacco -- but he's missing the point. Taxes aren't going to hurt Big Tobacco, not really. Law suits and constant customer death hasn't *really* hurt Big Tobacco, and neither is raising the price (again). What WILL happen is that the children of low-income smokers will suffer because their household will be spending more on cigarettes in order to fund the welfare which, in all likelihood, they will be denied. Thirty-five billion dollars is a nice sum of money, but it's not going to help everyone, particularly if by funding it you make more people need it. And don't you think the children of smokers are *more likely* to need health care?