...the things stay the same. Nanny-minded politicians never learn.
A potential tax of $10... per cigar. And, btw, it would apply to current inventory as well - which is one thing if it were to be collected at the point of sale... a pessimistic reading of the bill would have it be paid up front by the merchant.
All for the children, of course. To fund their health care, we'll use sin taxes which, if they have the desired effects, will be a self-defeating tax (i.e., people will quit smoking cigars) leaving us with an unfunded program... which means we'll have to fund it somehow - sorry 'bout that tax increase for the program we sold you as only being a tax increase on people with bad habits or who are rich, anyway! It's for the kids, donchaknow.
Heh. Memo for the political class: Can you say "Overnight expansion of gangs and organized crime into cigar smuggling?"
I knew you could. This is just dumb and not well thought out. You can't do this with a sin tax and *not* increase crime. How many teenagers and 20-somethings will we kill (via law enforcement activity) and will kill each other due to gang turf wars to fund children's health care?
You strip out crimes of passion and suicides, and the vast bulk of gun violence in this country is gang/crime related, and mostly has revolved around attempts to ban or heavily tax perceived sin. That *big* spikes in that kind of violence (not counting the splashy political killings of the civil rights era that gave us the Gun Control Act of 1968) can be measured by the laws created to control gang violence... such as the National Firearms Act of 1934, in response to the turf wars being fought over distribution rights during... Prohibition, and the McClure-Volkmer Act of 1986 and the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, in response to violence mostly related to.... the "Drug War." In other words, arguably, the big, sustained surges in gun violence are usually related to crime, and most often criminal activities that have become more lucrative because of political action.
If we don't do silly things like try to effectively ban sin (vice control it and regulate it)... we really don't have a huge gun problem in this country.
But on this subject, we seem to... shoot ourselves in the foot, time and time again.
BTW, I don't smoke. And I lost my mother (who did smoke, like a chimney) to lung cancer this year, and it was ugly to watch. And yes, I think this law, as written, is just dumb.
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