New Federal Taxes!
Posted by Jo on Sunday, 15-Jul-2007
The finance committee has decided to raise federal taxes by 61 cents a pack on cigarettes, plus raise taxes on other tobacco products. Republican Grassley and Democrat Max Baucus are two of the villans.
The bill has bipartisan support.
It is becoming clearer this is a way to funnel money to the insurance companies for their political donatons to the gangsters now in office.
The fifty billion dollar tax will only cover a few million more. The federal government pays 70% of the cost of insuring children and the states pay the rest. What is wrong with that picture?
Children are the most profitable group to insure. Sure there are a few that get serious medcal problems, but the percentages are for most to stay healthy and almost cost free.
If the government were concerned about the health of children they would pool tax money and pay as they go instead of giving most of it as profit to the insurance companies and their cohorts the drug companies.
When did it become the government of the insurance companies, by the insurance companies, for the insurance companies?
They are bankrupting Medicare as I type, all the while saying government can't run a successful program, while they drain the money from it.
Comments [ new ]
- Re: just saw this
- Posted by Jo on Sunday, 30-Sep-2007
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ topic | top ]
[Re: link posted by mike c]
Don't blame it all on the republicans. It was in a bipartisan committee. Grassley, republican senator, loves the plan and is going to try to talk Bush into not vetoing it.
They say the more they raise taxes on cigarettes the more quit. If that is true then they are going to lose a lot of the tax base they have so they won't really get a lot more taxes.
Many just move to the cheapest brands, which are not even made of real tobacco. It has weeds, cow manure and bits of wood to name a few. Those thing are killers. They are as harmful as they claim other cigarettes are.
The reason Grassley likes it, he knows it will give more to the insurance companies. That is what republicans support, big business.
The wealthy corporations have learned to use the 'help the poor' mantra to suck all taxes paid in out the back door in the form of profits for themselves. They are bankrupting medicare by their profit making. The Bush gov gives the drug plans and supplementals of the private insurance companies extra money to 'subsidize' them.
- Politics ingeneral
- Posted by Kerry on Monday, 01-Oct-2007
Beware! Beware! ANY TIME politicians or ANYONE else says "it's for the good of the children" or anything similar, you can be sure it isn't. Those terms are used to dupe the populace into agreeing to hand over more money to the government without any accountability.
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | topic | top ]
Please write your legislators to let them know that you are a smoker and will not vote for them if they support even more unfair "sin" taxes on tobacco or any other "sin" taxed product.
Only if we act as a group will anything change for the better. In other words, all this crap is BULLSHIT!
- Re: Politics ingeneral
- Posted by mike c on Monday, 01-Oct-2007
and hey...anybody that knows me here knows I don't understand politics....thanks .....
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | OP | topic | top ]
I have some work cut out trying to get a little dental care covered by Medicaid here in Texas for adults.....you can get really sick from infected teeth
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Dano on Tuesday, 14-Aug-2007
Well, what's wrong with that picture is this. The old saw of it being funded with 'Sin Taxes' ie: taxes on tobacco is a sham. One one hand they will raise taxes on smokers while on the other they ignore the fact that smoking is decreasing. In some parts of the country such as NYC consumption is down dramatically from a tax point of view. (The NYC tobacco black market on the other hand is thriving but that's another matter.)
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ topic | top ]
It's Bizarro Washington in bloom! The government wants everyone to stop smoking but wants smokers to ante up a giant revenue stream to fund health care. What happens if Washington gets its wish and everyone stops smoking?
So what will happen in reality is that the funding for the increase in this program will come from everyone in the form of a tax hike.
Oddly enough when one says "It's for the children" one usually assumes that said children are actually Children! You know a person between infancy and youth, a person not yet of age. In this case, 'Children' magically become 25 years olds! You read that correctly, this bill funds 'children' up to the age of 25.
It's bad enough that the politicians are trying to scam the people by implying that this program is for the poor, you know, people at poverty level wages. In reality this program covers a family earning $80K a year! If you're making $80K a year, you can damn well afford insurance.
What this program really is, is nothing more than a bald face attempt at Socialized Medicine Ala michael moore. It's Hillary's backdoor attempt at European Style Health Care and a giant expansion of government and taxes. If that's not enough to piss you off then think about how this will cover Illegal Immigrants.
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Smokin n Jokin on Tuesday, 14-Aug-2007
"One one hand they will raise taxes on smokers while on the other they ignore the fact that smoking is decreasing."
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | topic | top ]
That's true but it's really not a consideration. Arizona is just getting in the numbers from their recent $1.00 a pack increase in taxes. Sales declined by about 11% but their revenue from the new tax increased by over 150%. That's a trade off they are more than happy to live with and are confident that the 11% figure will go down as people that have tried to quit will be unsuccessful.
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Dano on Thursday, 16-Aug-2007
I can appreciate your point however it's not material to the funding of SCHIP. The original 1997 bill expires this September. The new bill has nothing to do with insuring children. If you understand how SCHIP works, ie: it's a 50/50 state/federal matching fund program with no restriction on how many people each 'State' accepts into the program.
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | OP | topic | top ]
So in Arizona's case, you've just enacted a $1 a pac cigarette tax increase, to be matched by federal funds, but the SCHIP bill only calls for a 45 cents increase. So in Arizona, smokers are going to chip in $1 towards the bill and the rest of you non smokers are going to chip in 55 cents each, per pac, to fund this bill in Federal Taxes.
This is a pure Democrat Power Play for National Health Care. Here's why.
* Democrats drafted their SCHIP re-authorization bill in secret without considering the opinions and facts from the administration or the states and refused to discuss it with Republicans until it was introduced 27 minutes before midnight several weeks ago with the 'stunt' over night-er in Congress.
* The bill fails to address the income-disregards loophole. Under the Democrats’ bill, a state could ignore all income between 200 percent and 600% of poverty. Plus, offer financial incentives to cover middle-income and wealthy children. The more individuals States enroll, regardless of income or legal eligibility, the more money States receive.
* The bills proposed in both houses make cuts to the Medicare Advantage program that will effectively eliminate the program that provides health care access for 1.2 million labor union retirees.
* Calls for a 12% cut in Medicare payments to physicians.
* Grants illegal immigrant’s access to Medicaid and SCHIP. The Democrats’ bill seeks to overturn an important provision in current law that requires a new legal permanent resident to wait five years before enrolling in either program. It also eliminates the requirement that persons applying show proof of citizenship or nationality.
* Requires a mandatory expenditure of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to provide $400 million “to translation or interpretation services in connection with the enrollment and retention . . . of families for whom English is not the primary language."
* Dramatically increases tobacco taxes by 45 cents per pack.
* Shifts 2.1 million kids with private health care to government-run health care.
* Allows 25 year old “Children” to receive SCHIP benefits and does nothing to prevent the number of waivers given to states to enroll thousands of childless adults.
* Restricts beneficiaries’ access to wheelchairs for the first month after it is prescribed to them.
So, you must see by now that your Arizona $1 increase in tobacco taxes isn't going to keep your Federal Taxes from going up significantly! And just as an aside, the 11% decrease in smokers you mentioned is illusory. There's NO evidence to suggest that those 11% stopped smoking as opposed to stop buying Taxed Cigarettes!
Everybody on this wonderful site is here because they Oppose Cigarette Taxes! Or to put it another way, most people here know the difference between Crap & Crisco :) From where I sit ya'll should be Calling, E-Mailing, Writing to your Reps in DC and telling them this baloney isn't going to fly, daily!!
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Dave L on Thursday, 16-Aug-2007
"So in Arizona's case, you've just enacted a $1 a pac cigarette tax increase, to be matched by federal funds, but the SCHIP bill only calls for a 45 cents increase."
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | OP | topic | top ]
Arizona increased (doubled) _state_ tobacco excise tax on cigarettes by $1 a pack (OTP's were unaffected), it has nothing to do with the proposed increase in _federal_ tobacco excise tax to pay for SCIP... At least not directly, there is talk about how the proposed federal increase will have a negative affect on state coffers.
Arizona's 'other tobacco products' (OTP) tax is 22.25¢/oz., the federal OTP tax is currently 6.86¢/oz. The SCHIP proposal would increase federal OTP tax to 55.56¢/oz on RYO tobacco (17.58¢/oz on pipe tobacco). The total tax on RYO tobacco in Arizona would be 77.81¢/oz or $12.45LB).
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Dave L on Sunday, 15-Jul-2007
The agreement, probably to be approved (NYT), isn't very subtle about it being 'for the children'.
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ topic | top ]
Google news (federal tobacco tax).
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Dave L on Sunday, 15-Jul-2007
Tony Fratto (White House spokesman) says: "The president's senior advisers will certainly recommend a veto of this proposal. And there is no question that the president would veto it." Senator Max Baucus will move ahead anyway because "The Senate will not be deterred from helping more kids in need," [link] It doesn't matter that using cigarette taxes to fund the project will impact the poor (kids parents) 37 times harder than if it were funded with an increase in federal income tax, or that cigarette taxes have risen at twice the rate of inflation (faster than property taxes). [link]
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | topic | top ]
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Jp on Wednesday, 18-Jul-2007
Yes, the insurance is for the children, but the profits on the children's insurance are for the insurance companies.
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | topic | top ]
The last I knew, they weren't even taking bids on insurance charges to help lower the costs on most insurance bought by the government.
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Jo on Sunday, 15-Jul-2007
What I wrote above is as clear as mud. I will try to clarify it a little. The federal tax of 61 cents will go to insure more children. It will add 50 billion to the cost of cigarettes over 5 years. It will be on top of what we already pay. There are only 8 million uninsured children at the most and some say there are not even nearly that many.
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ topic | top ]
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Hua Kul on Thursday, 16-Aug-2007
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | topic | top ]
Can anyone tell me how much bulk tobacco prices will increase from the increased tax on Other Tobacco Products? I think the increase will be around 150% but is that on the current tax or an increase on the cost of the product itself?
--Hua Kul
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Dave L on Thursday, 16-Aug-2007
As I understand it there are two different bills (house and senate). From something Mark Ryan said, I got the impression that OTP would see the same 150% federal excise tax increase as cigarettes (approx. $1LB to $2.75).
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | OP | topic | top ]
... What I just found is a _lot_ scarier '$1.0969 to $8.8889' on RYO tobacco ('$1.0969 to $2.8126' on pipe tobacco and '2.44 to 6.26 cents' on tubes). The proposed bills (sec 701 in S.1893.PCS, H.R.976.EAS and H.R.3269.IH @ [link], found by searching for 'tobacco excise tax') all agree on that. I _really_ hope Bush carries through on his threat to veto this.
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Wazmo Nariz on Sunday, 15-Jul-2007
Proof the fed has shot it's wad and needs to be totally overhauled (and it's current members key-hauled).
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ topic | top ]
Of course, not only *can't* governments in general sucessfully run the ponzi schemes they create, but they *shouldn't*. Government should be in the business of government only; not insurance, not bizarre income redistribution schemes, not thought and lifestyle police.
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Jo on Sunday, 15-Jul-2007
A government like we have now is no good.
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | topic | top ]
We need a good government that tries to be fair to all, not just think of ways to give more to the already rich at the expense of everyone else.
We would have been better off not depending on our government since Bush went in office. Why impeachment is off the table is beyond me.
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Captain U-96 aka Mike on Friday, 10-Aug-2007
Simply put, we have a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. I have been in a state of wonderment as I witness the same things you and other posters have mentioned, and Americans from coast to coast just sit back and watch feeling helpless; waiting for the the right person to come along to wake everyone from their slumber. Come election day we seem to forget the last several years; believing every word we hear from the gold diggers!
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | OP | topic | top ]
I would love to see an addition to our voting ballots to include a check box for "No Confidence" after each persons name on the ballot! I wonder what other people in other countries think of us? Sheep? Capt U-96
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by james on Thursday, 16-Aug-2007
I'm assuming you have never heard of the longshot republican candidate Ron Paul. If you want a true american to run our country and not the current nazi admin you owe it to your fellow americans to check him out.
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | OP | topic | top ]
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by mark on Tuesday, 21-Aug-2007
the folks pushing the high federal taxes are the elitist socialists - kennedy and waxman. thank goodness bush is saying he will veto the bill. if we get hillary in there we are all doomed. she will pass the fda regulation and all tobacco products will be illegal in the usa within a few years. by the way, when bush passed the tax cuts, for the first time less than 50% of americans pay any federal income taxes (49%). to suggest that that the poor pay most of the taxes is propaganda perpetuated by the left wing media that distorts and undermines anything related to the current administration. fascism/totalitarianism (as forms of government) are associated with socialism not capitalism (which are forms of economy). if you want to experience fascism, wait until the socialist left take over and they look out for us "poor ignorant citizens." the desire for people to be responsible and accountable for their own behavior is associated with capitalism. the problem with democracy (also a form of government) is that people get elected who raid the treasury and effectively buy votes from the folks who want everything free from the government. this sense of entitlement is in my opinion damaging the fabric of our country. it is easy to vote for politicians that promise everything for nothing, but it is on the back of hard working americans.
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | OP | topic | top ]
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Wazmo Nariz on Tuesday, 21-Aug-2007
I agree with you as far as your post goes, but it doesn't quite go far enough. After all, the jabbering boobs of the neoconservative movement which highjacked the Republican party after Reagan's first term have surely been having their fun--eroding individual rights at every turn, laughing at property rights, increasing the size and scope of government beyond all previous levels, increasing spending for entitlement programs and playing interventionist around the world.... They've hardly been what one would call a wonderful treat themselves, unless you're a bureaucrat or a lobbyist. :-) In fact, the neoconservative movement itself is firmly rooted in hard-core Wilsonian politics; how funny is it that so many so-called "republicans" (as opposed to pre-Nixon Republicans) and Bush "conservatives" are so enamoured of the neo-cons when they're nothing but offspring of the Old Left?
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | OP | topic | top ]
In any event, we're doomed if we get anyone for president from either major party. Except for possibly Ron Paul.
That aside, a personal question...do you involve yourself in any organisations working to stem the aggressive Nannyist tide crashing at the feet of people who choose to use tobacco products? If so, can you recommend any to become involved in that could really use our help? Thanks.
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Kerry on Tuesday, 21-Aug-2007
Well said Mark, but here where I live the city has passed a smoking ban and it wasn't the left wing that did it. It was the self-righteous religious right wing, so-called "conservatives", nanny-state, neo-nazi fascists.
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | OP | topic | top ]
So, I guess what I am saying is that is isn't just the left that is the problem and a threat to individual freedom and responsibility in this country.
What's that old saying... "How do you know if a politician is lying?"
.
.
.
.
.
"His mouth is moving."
- Re: New Federal Taxes!
- Posted by Dano on Thursday, 16-Aug-2007
Yoho Matie!
[ reply | link ] to this. Go to [ parent | topic | top ]
I agree with you but in a burst of pique let me point out it's....
It's 'KEEL Haul'! as in throw the scurvy rat over the back of the ship with a rope around him, drag him under the keel to the bow of the ship and if he lives? Well... Hu Raa! :)