Light Up. Its for the Children!

At the same time that federal, state and local governments are attempting to wipe out the scourge of smoking, federal, state and local governments are hitching their ideological wagons to taxes raised by evil cancer sticks.

From IBD:

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed 289-139 a bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, something President Bush vetoed twice because it expands the program to those who arguably don't need it while increasing the dependence of millions on government.

The bill would provide $32.3 billion over 4 1/2 years to add 4 million children to the 7 million already covered in the program. It pays for the expansion with a 6% tax on cigarettes. A government which insists that smoking imposes enormous health care costs on society intends to use it as a revenue source for health care. Huh?

Smoking has been on the decline for decades, thanks in part to a massive government effort to discourage it and punish the tobacco industry for promoting it. Ever-higher tobacco taxes were intended to accelerate this process. That tax is in addition to state and local tobacco taxes, which are often hefty. These taxes are as high as $3.66 per pack in Chicago and $4.25 per pack in New York City.

As Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., ranking member on Ways and Means, reminds us, President-elect Obama promised that no one making less than $250,000 per year would see their taxes go up. This legislation breaks that promise. Obama has proposed "tax cuts" in the form of rebate checks to the working poor, then raises their taxes to pay for health care.

"Shifting the focus away from poor children is bad enough," Camp says. "Playing a shell game with the program's funding and forcing every American to soon pay higher taxes just adds insult to injury."

Like most government programs, the new SCHIP is likely to grow rapidly. SCHIP costs increased by 10% in 2007 and by 18% in 2008. An analysis by the Heritage Foundation says that to fund the SCHIP expansion, Democrats would need to recruit 22.4 million new smokers by 2017.

22.4 million smokers that will, hopefully, find a place other than a public building, private enterprise, automobile, park, school property, restaurant, bar, casino or anywhere else that a child might be present before partaking. They should also be kind enough to shower and change clothes before having contact with anyone to ensure that no third-hand smoke is distributed.

Silliness squared.