“Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is not fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.” ? B.R. Ambedkar
I read Steve’s entry this morning on the tobacco tax increase the house progressives just passed. HB 659-FN-A passed 193 to 167 largely right along party lines, bringing along the usual recognizable (and some Freshman) RINO’s. I think anybody that follows house voting behavior is not at all surprised or intrigued because those RINO’s sipping the progressive Kool-Aid ascribe to the notion that somehow fewer kids will smoke as the price of a pack increases. But the fact is, kids do pay taxes. When a 13-year-old goes to the mall and purchases a Burrito in the Food Court or a Burger at McDonalds, they pay a 9% rooms and meals tax. So at a very young age we begin teaching our kids about the realities of paying taxes. Likewise with Cigarette purchases.
Steve Mac Donald writes,
“This ‘revenue’ will be extracted from predominantly middle and lower income people, but the left has an excuse. They think the cost will deter teenagers from picking up the habit.”
I think Steve is spot on in his assessment. So I decided to take his entry a step further and examine just, “who” smokes. A web search reveals a virtual plethora of assessments on smoking demographics. So, let us drill down on what we know.
Current known statistics tell us that, Smoking prevalence is higher among adults living at or below the poverty level (32.3 percent) than those living above the poverty level (23.5 percent), but below the “middle class” demographic. Adults with 16 or more years of education ranked the lowest in smoking prevalence (11.3 percent). Adults with 9 to 11 years of education results in a higher smoking prevalence (36.8 percent) compared to adults with fewer or more years of education. Overall, one in five people smoke (20 per cent) of the population.
Gender
Plainly stated…More men smoke than women do. Based on CDC data, 17 per cent of women smoke, compared to 22 per cent of men.
Income Class
Poorer households have more smokers. Households where the annual incomes exceeds $150,000 accounts for less than 8 percent, in comparison to 20 percent of households with annual incomes less than $20,000.
Race
The next graphic speaks for itself. Clearly, the largest payer of tobacco taxes are minorities, the highest being Native American and Alaskan Native Non-Hispanics.
Education
The CDC data reveals those who smoke have less education. Those who do not smoke, tend to have more education.
So there you have it. Like most kinds of taxes that Progressives love, Regressive tobacco taxes takes a larger percentage of income from those who have less, leaving the more affluent virtually unaffected.
Poor smokers pay the same cigarette tax as the very miniscule number of affluent who smoke, yet the price burden is substantial on the poor as these taxes increase. The more money one has, the less pain one feels financially. So where have we heard that argument before? Something to do with the rich not paying their “fair share” and on the backs of the middle class? I smell hypocrisy.
Smoking is bad for you
Yes it is. It is patently undeniable that substantial health costs are driven by smoking. It is also disingenuous to couch the taxation argument in the morality of smoking when the conversation starts out as a revenue conversation. Liberals do not care about the health of poor smokers any more than they care about the rich they want to tax into oblivion.
A tax imposed where the net tax result is disproportionate when most who pay it are minorities, is racist. This is not my argument, but a liberal argument A Tax imposed where the net tax result is disproportionate when most who pay it are poor people, is class warfare from the neo-marxist bourgeois class. Progressive love these arguments in all things liberal, so why not tobacco taxes? Why? because the liberals think they know better than the unwashed masses in determining what is good and what is not.
The irony is that in the same session, the vote in the affirmative came in to legalize medical marijuana. And for all the experience, data and examples of other states who have so endeavored, the still-most common method of marijuana consumption is…smoking it. Therefore, tell us again why tobacco taxes are so paramount in the public health arena? I think we have established the racism and class warfare theory.
