SCHIP

[TonyToro]

Hi Folks,

I noticed on Lew's site that he has a write up on what appears to be potentially bad TAX news for us cigar smokers. Just thought I'd pass it on so more can see it. I'm afraid we are facing a big price increase when this thing passes. The dumbest thing about it, how do you fund a program that is forever growing larger by taxing an item that will surely see a big sales decline when the new taxes are added on to said product? I guess you have to be a politician to justify that logic?

[houdini]

Stock up because this is inevitable. Obama has stated it will be his first order of business when he gets into office. It is unfortunately, another tax burden to fund a socialist concept.

[heavyd]

SCHIP is the least of our worries as far as the "redistribution of wealth" goes. Stand by, folks

[smokeyandthebandit05]

I cant believe SCHIP is really happening but keep your powder dry boys

[PipesandGOP]

NC's state tobacco taxes just went up quite a bit here recently. I know it's nothing to you guys up north who are already paying out the nose but it's really starting to hit here... and as has been said, with this new "administration" I'm sure new hikes on the federal level are soon to come.

[Jimbo14]

About time you US boys got hit by the tax like the rest of us from around the world :P

Just kidding, sorry to hear about it - tax can be very unfair...

When it comes in just try to think of the tax dollars going to hospitals and schools (thats how I sleep at night)

[PipesandGOP]

Originally Posted by Jimbo14

About time you US boys got hit by the tax like the rest of us from around the world :P

Just kidding, sorry to hear about it - tax can be very unfair...

When it comes in just try to think of the tax dollars going to hospitals and schools (thats how I sleep at night)

Please (and yea I'm hoping there was sarcasm there) ... with a mother that's a school teacher and two aunts who are doctors and one of their brothers being a nurse... along with another in risk management for a local hospital; the waste that goes on should be a crime.

Think about this- at the end of every school year, the principal calls all the teachers in for a conference (already wasting their time when it would be spent on schoolwork) to tell them that they have $x left for their budget to spend and they just have to spend it because if they don't it goes back in to the general fund. So what they do? Buy every off the wall program and set of books imaginable, all something else just to waste money and to take up more of the teachers time when they could be doing what? Anyone? Teaching.

Hospitals are the same way- catered meetings 2 times a week (sometimes more in other places) for doctors, bonuses for doctors who don't perform, programs for people who don't even pay taxes yet are perfectly capabable of working, illegal aliens getting free treatment while they don't pay taxes, wrecks caused by drunk illegal aliens, babies being popped out constantly fathered and mothered by illegals... the list goes on, but the root of it many times can be found in leeches on the system and poor management.

Here in NC the lottery was supposed to be the answer to all our education funding problems. Well now all that's happening is we have christmas scratch off tickets and on christmas day when i stop to get gas I see women sitting in their cars with the windows rolled up smoking cigarettes and scratching off tickets instead of being at home with their family... and yes, they're still complaining about needing more money for education.
Healthcare will follow suit for sure.

Our only hope for this poor pathetic nation that's been ravaged by the evil rich man? The great Messiah- Rocko.

[c2000]

Originally Posted by houdini

Stock up because this is inevitable. Obama has stated it will be his first order of business when he gets into office. It is unfortunately, another tax burden to fund a socialist concept.

Right on ,,this a done deal.. Well I can't think of anything better in a recession than to tax legal businesses out of existence..


Jerry in Minnesota.

[Ozone89]

The GREAT Messiah is going to heal us all.

[Sergeant Smoky]

Looks like I will need a few bigger coolers for my life time supply.



A few of these oughto do it.

[Sergeant Smoky]

Also as a citizen of this country I don't mind paying taxes. The problem that I have with most taxes is that it is ment for one purpose but is spent for something else. For example SCHIP was intended to pay for health insurance to families with children, but with all the loop holes a same sex couple with no children somehow qualify for this benefit. Use the tax money the way it was proposed and we would all get along better. just my and then some.

[Brule]

As someone with medical problems and a low income, I really wish government would stop trying to "help" me. All the better that he's taxing one of the few (affordable) pleasures I do spurge on. Of course, if I could make money honestly, that would kill any help I now recieve. So until true recoverly it makes financial sense to not even try to work. Or to just cheat and not report income, which is what I've basicly been told to do by other people in my position. Too bad for me I try to do that entire "moral" and "honest" routine....

This cigar tax is just plain foolish and scary. I only wish tax happy politicians would look up "opprotunity cost" and maybe understand how a tax like this hurts everyone.

[Namerifrats]

I got the JR Catalog with the big S-CHIP on the front. I guess we're just all screwed.

[fsjonsey]

[SIZE=6]WE CAN STOP THIS![/SIZE]

There is only one thing we, as American citizens, can do to prevent this bill from passing and becoming law.

CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN AND SENATOR, AND TELL EVERY OTHER BOTL YOU KNOW TO DO THE SAME!

Explain to them that a cigar tax increase of this magnitude, in this economy, could put hundreds, possibly thousands, of hardworking Americans out of work, and could possibly lead to massive increases in unemployment in Central and South America, specifically Honduras, The Dominican Repulic, and especially Nicaragua, a country that has recently voted Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas back into power. Ortega is beginning to become openly hostile towards the United States, and any action we take that would put Nicaraguan workers out on the street is basically putting political capital right into his hands. The last thing the US needs is for Central America to become destabilized, and imposing a draconian tax on the products of an industry that employs many Central Americans would do just that. The SCHIP cigar tax may also have the undesired side effect of causing illegal importation of Cuban cigars and other off shore black market tobacco products to skyrocket, which in turn would cause US Customs department spending to drastically increase. Even though this tax increase would bring more revenue into the already bloated SCHIP program, the money needed to negate the economic costs and increases in Customs and tobacco enforcement would be massive.

[epyon26]

SCHIP is , I'v said once and I'll say it again Its time for us cigar and pipe smokers to load up the AK and go to war.