The Federal Government is positioning itself to raise taxes on cigars from 5 cents to $10 per cigar.  That’s a 20,000 percent increase!!!

The problem is that the Democrat controlled congress is looking for money.  They have proposed a bill asking for a $35 - $50 billion increase in federal funding for the state children’s health insurance program.  What better place to steal the money than from the persecuted smoking class?

Under the new funding bill, taxes on a pack of cigarettes will rise from 39 cents to $1.  The tax on “large cigars” will increase from 4.8 cents per cigar to 53 percent of the cost of the cigar, with a maximum of $10.

In 2006, taxes on cigars brought the US government $225-million — a rather miniscule number when compared to the $7.4-billion in taxes stolen from cigarette smokers.  That’s a total of more than $7.5 billion dollars worth of tax revenue from those two players in the tobacco industry. 

The tax will raise the government’s income to $53-billion from cigars and $400-billion from cigarettes — based on 2006 sales figures.  This is an obscene increase in money going to a government that we need to shrink not feed.

If you smoke a $10 cigar the price will increase to $15.  If you smoke that cigar twice a week, your expenses will increase by $40 each month or $480 per year.  If you smoke a $20 cigar the price goes up to $30 and the yearly increase doubles to $960.  Some people are on a tight budget and will not be able to afford such an increase.  So what happens?  Businesses will take a hit and people like Eric Newman will loose their livelihoods.

This is the problem with the government providing healthcare.  They believe that when they are in control of the health of the people they have the right to control what we do, whether via regulation or excessive taxes.  We need to get the government out of healthcare and we need to stop taxing people for what they enjoy doing.

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