Hot Air » Blog Archive » April Fools! Thank You For Smoking (For The Kids) Day comes early

The cigarette tax is a great example of Big Government hypocrisy on Big Tobacco. They claim to want to penalize smokers for the health-care costs they create through their nicotine addiction, but the funds will go primarily to health-care costs to non-smokers: children. In reality, they needed a big new revenue stream to pay for another giveaway, and decided to get it from smokers.

Nor is that the only hypocrisy. Most nanny-staters claim that they’re acting in benefit of smokers by increasing taxes, as that will provide further incentive for them to quit using the product. However, if people actually did stop smoking, it would bankrupt government, which needs a large smoking tax base to provide billions in cash on state and federal levels. If we propose the reverse — if we outlawed tobacco rather than taxed it — would Congress eliminate S-CHIP? Of course not. They’d just look for something else to tax.

Greenish Politics in the Emerald Isle (an energy item for St. Patrick’s Day) — MasterResource

Thus does the story on climate policies in Europe play out in American politics: as EU green parties and groups pressure on climate, inexorably raising the cost of doing business, so do European governments seek to the pull the US into the fray as a last ditch effort to level the playing field. Misery loves company.