It is pretty ironic that they connect children's health care to smoking. I would think if children's health care is an important enough issue - funding would be tied to stable and secure funding. If everyone stopped smoking or if smoking where to be made illegal, the way some want it to be, what is going to happen to the child health care funding? It is odd that on one hand the government wants to discourage smoking, but on the other hand would have programs tied to the need for people to smoke.
I guess the reality for this tax proposal has more to do with the proponents being able to say anyone against this tax is against helping children. A pretty sad commentary on the proponents of the tax.
It also illustrates a certain level of incompetence in Washington given matching a declining revenue source to a program that will have increasing costs.
Another way to look at it - imagine a Reverend preaching against prostitution, but then saying if you are going to be a prostitute, don't forget to donate a special 10% of your earnings to the church Sunday school program. Connecting the financial success of the prostitutes in his congregation to the success of his Sunday school. Interesting moral issue for the righteous.
From Heritage Foundation:
Quote:
While a tobacco tax is a politically popular funding source, it has several significant shortcomings:
* A tobacco tax disproportionately burdens low-income Americans, lacks long-term stability, and ultimately results in significant shifting of health care costs onto others.
* With the number of smokers already declining, a tobacco tax would further reduce the number of smokers, thereby eroding the funding source.
* To produce the revenues that Congress needs to fund SCHIP expansion through such a tax would require 22.4 million new smokers by 2017.
Rather than making SCHIP dependent on increasing the number of smokers, Congress should refrain from narrow government program expansions and work on a broader strategy for improving access to affordable, private health insurance for all Americans--including children.
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http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm1548.cfm