Rush Limbaugh's Morning Update: Blowing Smoke!
You remember years ago -- liberals sued Big Tobacco and then hit consumers with massive tax increases, and I predicted that the settlement money would fund government operations -- not health care, as promised. And I said a thriving black market for cigarettes would emerge.
Well, since then, states have indeed spent their settlement money on non-health care initiatives and have become totally dependent on tobacco tax revenue. And now they're worried about the thriving black market of cigarettes; there may have been a tipping point reached in cigarette taxation here.
Criminal gangs are smuggling cigarettes from lower-tax states to higher-tax states. It's gotten so bad that the ATF has developed a national strategy to combat the trafficking. It's a lucrative business, especially in states like New York. That's where yet another tax increase will push the price of a pack of legally purchased cigarettes to almost nine dollars. An Indian reservation 60 miles from New York City sells over ten million cartons a year to people trying to avoid these high prices.
But it isn't just Native Americans and domestic criminal gangs: Smokers are turning to Internet sales operations, too. Tons of counterfeit cigarettes are now showing up from the ChiComs.
Now, all of this unfolded precisely as I predicted. See, the one thing the liberals can't get through their thick skulls is that people respond to confiscatory taxes by changing their behavior. This was the lesson of the American Revolution -- a war fueled by high taxes and lost liberties -- and it's going to be true forever. Trust me, folks. I mean, I'm not blowing smoke up your skirt: It actually happens the way I tell you!
Well, since then, states have indeed spent their settlement money on non-health care initiatives and have become totally dependent on tobacco tax revenue. And now they're worried about the thriving black market of cigarettes; there may have been a tipping point reached in cigarette taxation here.
Criminal gangs are smuggling cigarettes from lower-tax states to higher-tax states. It's gotten so bad that the ATF has developed a national strategy to combat the trafficking. It's a lucrative business, especially in states like New York. That's where yet another tax increase will push the price of a pack of legally purchased cigarettes to almost nine dollars. An Indian reservation 60 miles from New York City sells over ten million cartons a year to people trying to avoid these high prices.
But it isn't just Native Americans and domestic criminal gangs: Smokers are turning to Internet sales operations, too. Tons of counterfeit cigarettes are now showing up from the ChiComs.
Now, all of this unfolded precisely as I predicted. See, the one thing the liberals can't get through their thick skulls is that people respond to confiscatory taxes by changing their behavior. This was the lesson of the American Revolution -- a war fueled by high taxes and lost liberties -- and it's going to be true forever. Trust me, folks. I mean, I'm not blowing smoke up your skirt: It actually happens the way I tell you!
posted by Andy W. Rogers | 7:41 AM
1 Comments:
Rush missed one important aspect of higher taxes and the black market: the higher taxes were justified by antismoking lobbyists because they would supposedly discourge teens (usually called "children" in this context) from smoking.
Actually the thriving black market takes the sales out of regulated stores where clerks are pressured to ask for ID and puts them in the back alleyway where the seller could care less if you're 18 or 8.
The claim that every 10% rise in tax produces a 7% drop in "children" smoking is just as big a lie as the rest of the antismoking nonsense: if it were true, then the 1700% increase in NY City's cigarette tax from 8 cents to a $1.50 coupled with the NY State increase of $1.50 would have wiped out teen smoking from the Jersey Shore to the Rocky Mountains.
Did it? Nope: the teens in NY are smoking just about as much as they always did once you take into account the increased lying that now goes on about their semi-illegal habit.
To see more about the health and economic lies that push smoking bans, go to:
http://encyclopedia.smokersclub.com/257.html
You'll be surprised, and hopefully angered, at how these extremists have lied about and distorted the facts to terrorize people into supporting their bans.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
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