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I am late to the thread, but here is 2 cents worth on it:
He stated:
"Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
I don't think that the majority of people would think that raising taxes on cigarettes is a violation of that promise even if most smokers are poor. If it is, then raising the entrance fee to a forest service recreation area would be a violation of that promise because the middle class are more apt to use those areas than the richest of Americans. A targeted tax on tobacco products is not the same thing as a tax increase on payroll taxes, income, and so on. If this is a broken promise, then raising any kinds of fees would be a broken promise. For example, what is the difference between a tax increase on tobacco and a fee increase on passports? What would be the difference in a tax increase on tobacco, and a fee increase on backcountry permits? Either way, your increasing the costs on a chosen activity and those costs would primarily impact the Middle Class as they are the largest demographic taking part in those activities. Reagan said he would not increase taxes, but he increased fees on all kinds of services. Did he break his promise?
If people complain about everything, then no one is going to listen to them when they actually have something legitimate to complain about.
That all said, I totally agree with raising the taxes on smokes. Not because I am for sin taxes, but rather because of the costs smokers place on the rest of us.
One of the biggest problems we have in our society today is that one's bad choices in life are very often subsidized by others. You can smoke your whole life, and when you get lung cancer at 67 year years old, the rest of us pick up the tab for your treatment through Medicare taxes. You can take terrible care of yourself, spend a lifetime of not eating right, and when you end up with diabetes, the rest of us get to pick up the tab for your medical care.
These are poor life choices that individuals freely choose to make in life, and others have to pay for the costs of their near inevitable consequences. This is what economists would call a Moral Hazard. This is completely different from say a child having Cerebral Palsy, or a woman ending up with breast cancer. Those are medical issues that those individuals have through no fault of their own. Big difference in that and a smoker getting lung cancer, or an obese individual ending up with heart disease or diabetes.
You have a right to live your life the way you chose to do so. If you want to smoke, you can and should have the freedom to do so. If you don't want to take care of yourself, never exercise, and eat poorly your whole life, then you have a right to do so. Free societies require the principle of Self Ownership, and that certainly falls underneath Self Ownership. However, you do not have the right to burden others with the costs and consequences of your poor life choices. So while you should be able to smoke, others should not have to subsidize the consequences of your choice to smoke. Similarly, you should be able to eat what ever you want, and get as fat as you want, but others should not have to subsidize the consequences of your choice to do so. Its not fascism at all to tax smokers more for the costs of their choice to smoke.
The problem is that as a society, and as individuals, we cannot in good conscience deny a lifelong smoker medical treatment for emphysema or lung cancer. What we can do is say look, your poor choices are going to cost us all a lot of money, so you need to pay for your poor choices rather than burdening the rest of us with it.
He stated:
"Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
I don't think that the majority of people would think that raising taxes on cigarettes is a violation of that promise even if most smokers are poor. If it is, then raising the entrance fee to a forest service recreation area would be a violation of that promise because the middle class are more apt to use those areas than the richest of Americans. A targeted tax on tobacco products is not the same thing as a tax increase on payroll taxes, income, and so on. If this is a broken promise, then raising any kinds of fees would be a broken promise. For example, what is the difference between a tax increase on tobacco and a fee increase on passports? What would be the difference in a tax increase on tobacco, and a fee increase on backcountry permits? Either way, your increasing the costs on a chosen activity and those costs would primarily impact the Middle Class as they are the largest demographic taking part in those activities. Reagan said he would not increase taxes, but he increased fees on all kinds of services. Did he break his promise?
If people complain about everything, then no one is going to listen to them when they actually have something legitimate to complain about.
That all said, I totally agree with raising the taxes on smokes. Not because I am for sin taxes, but rather because of the costs smokers place on the rest of us.
One of the biggest problems we have in our society today is that one's bad choices in life are very often subsidized by others. You can smoke your whole life, and when you get lung cancer at 67 year years old, the rest of us pick up the tab for your treatment through Medicare taxes. You can take terrible care of yourself, spend a lifetime of not eating right, and when you end up with diabetes, the rest of us get to pick up the tab for your medical care.
These are poor life choices that individuals freely choose to make in life, and others have to pay for the costs of their near inevitable consequences. This is what economists would call a Moral Hazard. This is completely different from say a child having Cerebral Palsy, or a woman ending up with breast cancer. Those are medical issues that those individuals have through no fault of their own. Big difference in that and a smoker getting lung cancer, or an obese individual ending up with heart disease or diabetes.
You have a right to live your life the way you chose to do so. If you want to smoke, you can and should have the freedom to do so. If you don't want to take care of yourself, never exercise, and eat poorly your whole life, then you have a right to do so. Free societies require the principle of Self Ownership, and that certainly falls underneath Self Ownership. However, you do not have the right to burden others with the costs and consequences of your poor life choices. So while you should be able to smoke, others should not have to subsidize the consequences of your choice to smoke. Similarly, you should be able to eat what ever you want, and get as fat as you want, but others should not have to subsidize the consequences of your choice to do so. Its not fascism at all to tax smokers more for the costs of their choice to smoke.
The problem is that as a society, and as individuals, we cannot in good conscience deny a lifelong smoker medical treatment for emphysema or lung cancer. What we can do is say look, your poor choices are going to cost us all a lot of money, so you need to pay for your poor choices rather than burdening the rest of us with it.
