We came out against the measure last month. And we're not shedding any tears over the inability of Congress to override the Bully Boy's veto last week.
If you've got 'em, smoke 'em, Fancy Nancy.
In fact, for your bill to be effective, a lot of people would have to be smoking.
SCHIPS, Democratic leadership tells you, is an important program.
But it's not important enough for them to fund it with tax payer monies.
Instead, they scapegoated smokers and want to add a federal tax of a dollar a pack to each cigarette sale. Like the Bully Boy, they don't want to do their job.
Many states have had to utilize taxes on cigarettes to make up the budget cuts under Bully Boy. So, as Billie pointed out to us in an e-mail, in her state, smokers would pay twenty dollars in taxes for every carton of cigarettes they purchased if Fancy Nancy's legislation passed.
When we came out against the measure, we noted that it was just the sort of thing that gives the left a bad name, that makes it look like the left has nothing better to do than legislate personal behaviors.
If Pelosi wants to try to outlaw smoking, be honest about it.
But smoking tobacco still is legal in these United States.
The idea that the costs of caring for children's health issues would be pushed off on smokers demonstrates how little faith the Democratic leadership has in SCHIPS. Instead of asking all Americans to sacrifice, they want to punish smokers.
Or maybe it's to glorify smokers? If the measure goes through, maybe we can start erecting monuments to smokers. "_____ smoked 20 packs a day for 10 years, thereby ensuring that SCHIPS was fully funded. We salute you and your service to the country."
The sense of urgency the Democrats have attempted to portray on this issue is undercut by the fact that they waited until the last minute. Instead of looking like a deeply held belief in something, it looks like yet another 2008 election ploy.
But then it was always going to look that way because the plan is built around a flat-tax being applied to smokers. Democrats are not supposed to favor the flat-tax.
Democrats are also supposed to be the party that's a friend to those in the low income brackets. But instead of, for instance, declaring a tax on all SUV's sold, they went with smokers.
Those wicked, wicked sinners, smoking and harming themselves (even though it is legal). But when you create your tax base around something you consider 'sinful,' it's really hard to continue to call it a sin.
Had the measure passed (and Pelosi says the fight's not over), that would mean those 'bad' smokers were the ones paying for the SCHIPS program while the rest of America sat it out. That's a Bully Boy plan, it shouldn't be a Democratic one.
And a party's that's already pissing off the base for their inaction on the illegal war really can't afford to piss off anymore people.
If SCHIPS matters (and we think it does), tax us all. Stop demonizing certain segments of the public and get realistic that your 'windfall' won't be much of a 'windfall' because at twenty dollars in taxes for a carton, a lot of people will stop smoking and then you'll have to devise another way to fund your program.
If you really believe in SCHIPS, you don't create a 'sin' tax to pay for it. No desire has prompted the illegal war being funded by a 'sin' tax. On that issue, Congress just prints up money over and over.
