The local Dollar store has been charging $5.50 with tax for a pack of Marlboro Lights for a while. Thanks to the financing mechanism for the newly-reauthorized SCHIP program for uninsured kids, the price goes up to $6.00 on Monday. With our 4.5% General Excise Tax, that makes the price $6.25 per pack.
I'm all for insuring kids, but I wish that governments would broaden the base of people paying for it beyond us sinners.
Posted by Linkmeister at March 5, 2009 03:53 PM | TrackBackWe're a sitting target. Plus they want to have two opposing results with the cigarette taxes...One is to cause smokers to quit. The second is to get tax money. Talk about cognitive dissonance!
Posted by: BAJ at March 5, 2009 06:31 PMI've often thought that at some point the law of diminishing returns is going to take effect and there will be too few smokers left to fund all the programs the pols have built on our backs.
Posted by: Linkmeister at March 5, 2009 09:16 PMYeah, we should be dying off, sooner or later, and then who will pay these taxes?
I hear that Seattle is considering banning outdoors smoking. I guess I moved in the nick of time.
Posted by: SeattleDan at March 6, 2009 09:35 AMInterestingly enough, I did find the cigarette tax to solely fund the SCHIP program as odd. I mean, sure, it's ONE way of funding insurance for children, but there has to be more than one resource for this. Besides, getting money for health from something unhealthy (no offense) is a little ironic to me.
Posted by: Imee at March 10, 2009 11:35 PM