Once again people…Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em! (The Tobacco Tax Increase) A Liberal State of Mind pt. 6: Attack of the Republican blogs

Today on my Republican blog: Liberal lunacy. I have to admit that I’m a smoker. So you can understand why I have a very special reason to be upset today. The new tax hike on tobacco is utterly ridiculous. If we’re going to start raising taxes on items that people enjoy but may be unhealthy for them…I’m going to go ahead and nominate fast food, soft drinks, butter, salt, candy, all forms of meat, snack foods, tanning salons, computer screens (It’ll damage your vision), computer keyboards (carpal tunnel syndrome anyone?) This list could go on forever. When does it stop? What happens when your party raises taxes on something you enjoy dems? Hopefully you’ll move to the right. Allow me to present a few articles that all true Republicans and Libertarians will find very upsetting and may also make a few Democrats think a little bit about their party’s values. But before I do that, let me give a special thanks to the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, and the National Black Republican Association. So to all my Republican blogs and bloggers, my Libertarian blogs and bloggers, my Democrat blogs and bloggers (really?), and to all political blogs and bloggers: let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! Vote April 7th metro east residents! Enjoy:

Federal Tax on Cigarettes Goes Up 155% Wednesday
By George Sells

March 31, 2009

WEST ALTON, MO – (KTVI-FOX2now.com)

Smokers are just hours away from the largest single tax increase on cigarettes in American history. Many smokers spent Tuesday rushing around St. Louis looking to stock up before the prices goes up. The Federal excise tax on cigarettes goes up 155% Wednesday from 39 cents to a dollar and a penny. How much might the price jump tomorrow? It could be a little or a lot. The big tobacco companies won’t tell the stores.

At the Dirt Cheap Cigarette location in West Alton, it’s clear something is going on. Upon entering, you find nearly a dozen people in line, several of whom are carrying five or ten cartons of cigarettes. People are clearly stocking up. David Allen sums up many peoples’ feelings here.

“It feels like they’re picking on the smokers a little bit.”

The smokers are about to see the largest single tax increase on cigarettes in U.S. history. The 155% jump in excise tax will add 62 cents on to the price of every pack of cigarettes beginning April 1st. That’s Wednesday. The federal government says the money will be used to provide health care for poor children.

Standing in line, holding ten cartons, is Mary Schaefer. She says this will be the end of the smoking line for her and her husband.

“For me this is my last month to smoke. Between the economy and my husband losing, about to lose his job, we’ve got to do something, so we’re gonna quit. ” She says she has her children to think of.

“The kids have gotta eat before I’ve gotta smoke.”

How much the price will jump Wednesday remains unclear. Dirt Cheap’s owner tells FOX 2 that the big tobacco companies have been inching prices up for several week, potentially building in the price hike in advance. There will be no way to know for certain how much they’ll hit smokers Wednesday until they publish the day’s prices some time late Tuesday night.

In the interim, smokers are buying up cigarettes in droves, hoping to keep the government’s hand out of their pockets a little bit longer.

Doug Dorner says he can only take so much

“I only bring in so much and they keep raising the taxes on this stuff. I don’t know why.”

He says he’ll soon be priced out of his smoking habit. Of course, many in anti smoking circles will tell you, that’s the idea.

Copyright © 2009, KTVI-TV

Smokers are gasping at higher cigarette and cigar prices as the largest federal tobacco tax increase in history takes effect.

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

Smokers are gasping at higher cigarette and cigar prices as the largest federal tobacco tax increase in history takes effect.

“Oh my gosh,” Bernardo Torres said Tuesday when a clerk at a CVS Pharmacy in Falls Church, Va., told him the new price, which went up in anticipation of the tax increase. Torres wanted to buy his aunt two cartons of cigarette-size cigars, but he walked away empty-handed after hearing the new price: $134. The tax on little cigars went from 4 cents to $1.01 a pack.

“I don’t know what to do. This is going to hit her hard,” Torres said of his disabled aunt, 64, a heavy smoker who won’t quit.

“I’m going to quit,” said Will Hues, 27, smoking a cigarette outside the store. He said prices have gone up so much that “you’re out of your mind to pay it.”

The increases, which raise the federal cigarette tax from 39 cents a pack to $1.01, applies to all tobacco products. It comes as more than two dozen states, desperate for revenue in a sunken economy, consider boosting their own tobacco taxes this year.

“This is very historic,” said Matthew McKenna, director of the Office of Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Before the tax hike, cigarette prices averaged about $5 a pack. Now, tobacco companies are raising prices by different amounts. Some are absorbing part of the increase; others are raising prices more.

In the past, a 10% price increase reduced cigarette consumption about 4%, McKenna said. He expects the federal tax hike to prompt at least 1 million of the 45 million adult smokers to kick the habit.

“We expect this to accelerate the decline” in cigarette consumption, said Bill Phelps, spokesman for Philip Morris USA, the nation’s largest tobacco company. He said consumption has been dropping 3% annually for a decade. “Some people may quit smoking,” he said. “Others may cut back.”

Nik Modi, a tobacco industry analyst at UBS, expects cigarette consumption to drop by about 9% annually. Tobacco companies won’t be badly hurt, he said, because they’ve prepared for the increase.

Last month, companies began raising prices to cover the tax increase. Marlboro maker Philip Morris raised prices by at least 71 cents a pack. R.J. Reynolds, maker of Camel, did so by at least 42 cents.

Congress passed legislation last year raising the tax to fund the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, but former president George W. Bush vetoed it. In February, President Obama, who has struggled to quit smoking, signed a new version.

Even tobacco-growing states such as North Carolina are considering increases. Two states, Arkansas and Kentucky, doubled their taxes this year.

The federal increase “will fall on those who can least afford it,” said Frank Lester, spokesman for Reynolds American. He said one in four smokers live at or below the poverty line.

“More lower-income people than higher-income people will quit” because they cannot afford the tax hike, said Eric Lindblom of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

USA TODAY