Our Amazing Gummint

[Pop]

OK, I'm ranting yet again about the SCHIP proposed tax increases and yes, Pop has been known to smoke a stogie or eleven.

 

The fact remains that this is a proposal to raise the tax on a product by as much as 6000%.

 

Some of you smoke and some of you don't and some of you have been brought to misery from smoking. Certainly more sympathetic products to defend but wherever you fall on the spectrum is not what is relevant. Your legislators are entertaining the potential of a 6k% tax increase to a product.

 

We should all know the drill by now. Once those bozoes crack the code to another method of revenue, they will milk it to death. If you stand around and quietly accept a tax levy of those proportions on this product, your whining will be pissing up a rope when they repeat this lunacy for some other goods or services that you enjoy.

 

Nip it. Nip it in the bud now. Make the call, send the email. Be heard. W is expected to veto, but Pop does not rely on him to carry my water. I'm the taxpayer. I hire and fire them bastards and I pay their wage. If they have the gall to suggest taxes of this magnitude they need a bitchslap from they constituency.

 

I copied the rest from one of my cigar rags...

 

WHAT'S AT STAKE IN WASHINGTON

 

 

 

Los Angeles, September 20 – With the House Democratic leadership moving towards the Senate's version of a bill to fund the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the impact on the entire tobacco industry could be devastating.

 

If passed by the Congress and approved by President George W. Bush – who is promising a veto – the Senate's provisions to tax tobacco products to pay for this program would include, according to a table furnished by the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, the following:

 

• Cigarette taxes to go from 39 cents per pack today to $1.00 per pack, an increase of 256%.

 

• Large Cigar taxes to go from 20.719% of the manufacturer's price with a cap of 4.875 cents per cigar to 53.13% of the manufacturer's price (+ 256%) with a cap of $3.00 per cigar (a 6,154% increase).

 

• Little Cigar taxes to go from 4.0 cents per pack to $1.00 per pack, a 2,500% increase.

 

• Pipe tobacco taxes to go from $1.0969 per pound to $2.8126 per pound (+256%).

 

• Chewing tobacco taxes to go from 19.5 cents per pound to 50 cents per pound (+256%).

 

• Snuff taxes to go from 58.5 cents per pound to $1.50 per pound (+256%).

 

• Roll-Your-Own tobacco taxes to go from $1.0969 per pound to $8.9286 per pound (+814%).

 

• Cigarette papers taxes to go from 1.22 cents per 50 papers to 3.13 cents per 50 (+256%).

 

• Cigarette tube taxes to go from 2.44 cents per 50 tubes to 6.26 cents per 50 (+256).

 

The raise of 256% in the tax rate is fairly uniform across the board except for Little Cigars (+2,500%) and Roll-Your Own (+814%). But large cigars are hit worst of all with a 6,154% raise in the cap to $3.00 each.

 

Here's the impact: for a premium cigar which today:

 

• Retails for $3.00 (like a Gispert Lonsdale Maduro), the price will likely go to $4.60 before state tobacco taxes are included. Or from $75.00 per box of 25 to $115.00 before state taxes.

 

• Retails for $5.00 (think H. Upmann Vintage Cameroon Lonsdale), the price will likely go to $7.66 before state tobacco taxes are included. Or from $125.00 per box of 25 to $191.50 before state taxes.

 

• Retails for $7.50 (Romeo y Julieta Vintage II), the price will likely go to $11.48 before state tobacco taxes are included. Or from $187.50 per box of 25 to $287.00 before state taxes.

 

• Retails for $10.00 (a Montecristo Churchill is $10.25), the price will likely go to $15.31 before state tobacco taxes are included. Or from $250.00 per box of 25 to $382.75 before state taxes.

%%pagebreak%% • Any cigar which retails for $11.29 or more will reach the cap of $3.00 each, not including state tobacco taxes and increase the price to at least $17.30 or higher, before sales tax.

 

So not including the burden of state tobacco taxes – which can be calculated on the manufacturer's price, including the new federal tax – you're looking at a 50% or more increase in the price of premium cigars. That's what could happen starting January 1, 2008 if the current compromise bill becomes law. Now you know.

[Tahoe Chief]

Just more govt control bastards gonna have us communism b-4 it's all done . They are gonna tax fast food next then fat people then people that don't have gym membership,then like the fkn seat belt law you will be required to go to the gym.Bastards !!!!

[Last Resort]

Who is gunna save our sick planet?

 

[Last Resort]

Who is trying to kill our planet?

 

[Last Resort]

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.

 

 

HOUSE # 1:

A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas.

Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated

by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the

average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for

electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural

gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property

consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home.

This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's

in the South.

 

 

HOUSE # 2:

Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university,

this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction

can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and

is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central

closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water

through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67

degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The

system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes

25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling

system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000

gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets

goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The

collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers

and shrubs native to the are! a blend the property into the surrounding

rural landscape.

 

 

 

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of

Nashville,Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist

(and filmmaker) Al Gore.

 

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford,

Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private

residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

[Last Resort]

Truth or fiction?

 

Snopes.

[indian T]

Who is gunna save our sick planet?

 

 

THE GORACLE.

[Tahoe Chief]

algorithm?

[FiremanDave]

At what point will it be cheaper to switch smoking material? Pop much like your self I do not advocate smoking or tobacco use, it's a vile habbit of which I willing partake by choice. My use of tobacco has declined simply due to the economics of price increases in our state, currently cigarettes in TX are about 5.00 a pack now.

 

My biggest concern is at some point some gubbermit genius will figure if it works so well with tobacco, lets look at other sin taxes. Your not to off base the way I figure about fast food, but I think the next cash cow will be booze. It only makes sense by their logic, it's very harmful to the populace, what with the drain on health care funding and local taxes due the the use of local police, fire, and ems, funds because of DWIs. So you gotta ask yourself, do I want to pay an extra dollar for a can of beer? Most of us here could, but do we want to?