Run for the hills, Proposition 203 is coming.

 

Prop 203 purports to be about helping the children. While that is a nice segment of our population to help I have to ask one question; why if we had a $1,000,000,000.00 budget surplus last year are we needing a tax placed on cigarettes to raise $150,000,000.00 to help with child health and education issues?

 

Am I the only one here who thinks that the government is wanting to double dip?

 

According to the literature on Prop 203 the government wants to increase taxes on cigarettes to the tune of $.80 per pack or $8.00 per carton to raise the 150 million dollars they feel they need to save the children.

 

First of all, how will raising the price of cigarettes help the children? They seem fine to me. I know there are childhood illnesses out there killing some of them and that’s sad, but I think this would a tremendous use for 150 million dollars of our 1 billion dollar surplus, not another punishing tax on a legal substance.

 

Second, will punishing smokers over say, speeders on the highway who are breaking a law when they speed, increased fines for illegal dumping on people who are breaking the law when they dump in the desert, the collection of homes and automobiles from drug dealer when they are caught breaking the law by selling their wares be more beneficial than collecting it from these other people, at least what the smokers are doing is legal. You could even increase fines for drunk driving, the substance is legal but the abuse of it can cause serious lapses in judgment that could kill a child.  But too many cigarettes only makes the smoker sick, it does not impair his or her ability to drive a car.

 

Now the state does recognize that they have already hit this crowd once or twice already. In the literature it claims that they are prepared for a 23 million dollar drop in existing extra taxes collected from smokers as this $.80 per pack will undoubtedly be the last blow for some who are watching their pennies. But those smart politicians are ready with the net gain of 127 million dollars to fund this new little bureaucracy. They say that 10% of the 150 million dollars will go to run the program with the remaining 90% for the actual assistance of the children through education and health services.

 

Let’s be honest, this Proposition along with 201 and 206 are aimed at one thing, to decrease the number of smokers in America. If that’s what you want, just illegalize cigarettes. It’s that simple. It doesn’t matter that what we smoke is a legal substance; you believe it is hurting us and you care for our health so much that you want us to stop. Well folks, we aren’t all going to and if we did, the old, infirm and the children most of all would suffer horribly as funding for all their special assistance dried up at once. But you will continue to make it harder and harder for us dirty filthy smokers to enjoy our legal habit in public, where by the way it has been for centuries not bothering a single person. The real killer out there isn’t smoking it is divorce and abortion. Abortion has killed over 43 million babies since 1973 and divorce kills hundreds of thousands of live every year as families break up. Maybe they don’t die, but the scaring on the children is terrible sometimes, and you know it’s all about the children these days.  Hell cars kill an average of 40,000 people per year, get those damn things off the road and we’d all be safer. I even heard the other day that world wide there are 100,000 deaths per year by snake bite. If only we could round those little bastards up.

 

Here’s the most amazing part of the picture, you don’t need the money to fund this little project; you have a billion dollars in surplus money that could be used to fund this thing. You decided not to give it back so why aren’t you using some of it for this idea. Because that is not what the real issue is, it is hassling smokers.

 

You grip about Bush taking your rights away. Now a very real right, that of property ownership is up for a vote and you have no problem watching that right disappear a little at a time because you don’t own bar or restaurant in Arizona, so it really isn’t hurting you, besides smoking stinks.  You think it is ok for them to take away my right to smoke on a beach in California because you don’t like the smell and it has cancer causing agents in it that you think one exposure too is going to kill your entire family. Well so does Lysol, it stinks and has stuff in it that can kill you, but you don’t want it gone do you. Your perfume smells like s*** to me, but you walk right by in a deli killing my appetite and you don’t care a bit.

 

At the end of the day, all this talk about helping the kids is horse s***, so is the desire to fund other services, you want us to quit. Well, keep raising the price and we will, then the government will go after your wine with a tax, or your Twinkies or ice cream, because that stuff makes you fat and we all know obesity kills as many people as smoking does, but Twinkies smell good.

 

They will find another boggy man out there to attack and next time it might be you.

But what would I know; I’m just an Average American. Puff Puff Puff...awwww, that's good stuff.

 

P.S. Smoking deaths per year...http://www.jrussellshealth.com/smoking.html

Obesity deaths per year...http://www.idf.org/home/index.cfm?unode=C659495D-7467-45C0-8A19-5B3D8EA3D172

Car wrecks...http://www.countdeath.com/car_wrecks.shtml  This is a cool site by the way.

Snake Bites... http://www.zoocheck.com/programs/exotic/venom/snake.shtml

Just in case Indie want to check my facts....