THE NEW FEDERAL TOBACCO TAX

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Congress increased the federal tax on cigarettes by 61 cents per pack and raised the tax on other tobacco products.

According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, the resulting tax increase was much higher on some forms of tobacco:

• For large cigars, the federal tax increased 725 percent per cigar, from about a nickel to 40 cents.
• For loose tobacco, the tax increased 2,160 percent.
• For small cigars, it increased 2,653 percent

S-CHIP will now cover up to four million additional children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Unfortunately, there is plenty of evidence that not only will these tax hikes harm poor consumers and small businesses, they will fail to deliver the promised government revenues or public health benefits.

Using excise taxes to fund S-CHIP is especially problematic, since the percentage of the population using tobacco products is shrinking, while the number of children eligible for S-CHIP coverage is growing.

According to Heritage Foundation projections, the federal government will need 22.4 million new smokers by 2017 to pay for the S-CHIP expansion.

This means that Congress will likely have to raise other taxes to cover the $33 billion estimated annual cost of the S-CHIP expansion...

[It's call 'hook-&-reel'; Start a program on the backs of a demonized minority, and when that funding dries up you're now in a much better position to get general funding to foot the bill to avoid 'loosing' what's in hand.

Duped again.]

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