The 280% Tax Increase On Fags

From Kent Carlson of DM City View:

...the Big Lug recently presented the Iowa Legislature with his budget plan. Normally such an event would cause my eyes to roll back in my head and I would awake sometime later with a little drool at the corner of my mouth. But this time I got excited. Pissed off, actually. As Chester presented his plan to spend an additional $400 million to appease his constituents, he proposed raising the cigarette tax by $1. You’d have thought that another water pipe broke in the Capitol ceiling. The Lug Nuts (Democrat legislators) sprang to their feet. Then they exploded into thunderous applause — a long, noisy standing ovation.

That’s when I really got pissed-off. When the proposal of a 280 percent tax hike excites a bunch of political weasels enough to get them up off their asses and clap and cheer, something is terribly wrong. I don’t smoke and never have, but I was fuming. If I owned a gun I’d have pulled an Elvis and blasted my Samsung to smithereens. The Lug’s plan was just a modified version of the same garbage Vilsack tried to push, and just as misleading. Culver claims the 280 percent tax increase for cigarettes would provide $140 million for health care and other programs. He fails to mention that tobacco settlement payments and tobacco taxes generate $143.5 million annually in Iowa, yet only 3.6 percent of that revenue goes towards tobacco prevention. The General Accountability Office projected that of the $11 billion dollars the states received in 2005 from tobacco settlement funds only 17 percent went to health-related programs.

According to Attorney General Tom Miller’s official Web site, “Iowa’s share of the (tobacco industry) settlement is estimated at $1.7 billion.” Yet Tom Miller was slapping his hands together with his big, toothy grin on the floor of the Capitol when Culver proposed another smoker’s tax.

I don’t know about you, but I resent the hell out of politicians frothing, at the thought of getting into taxpayers pockets. Any politician stupid enough to publicly applaud a tax hike should be tarred and feathered. On second thought, tar is a petroleum-based product and I’d hate to waste such a valuable commodity on something as worthless as a politician. Maybe flogging. Now there’s an idea. Any takers?

Don't forget that even Rekha Basu was against higher cigarette taxes.

Attorney General Tom Miller, former governors Terry Braindead and Tom Vilsack, current crybaby Christopher Rants and the rest of the Iowa Legislature should be brought up on fraud charges for their mismanagement of the tobacco company shakedown money.