Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha
All of those on this board.
Schneed, people should be independent minded and not stick to their "liberal" or "conservative" friends on every issue. My only point was that conservatives rarely walk the walk. Conservatives often talk about "small government" and "states rights," yet they are so often proponents of growing a larger and more powerful federal government.
Smoking is NOT just a public health issue. Cigarette taxes ARE also about big government and whether the government ought to try to influence individual behavior through taxes.
And there is something redeeming about cigarettes...people like them. Cigarettes are perfectly analogous to harmful fast food - both are totally unhealthy, no one HAS to consume fast food or cigarettes, but they are redeeming because people like them despite their ill health effects.
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I'm pretty conservative and do not support this or any other new taxes. I do not have a problem paying taxes but do have a problem with the wast in local, state, and the federal goverment which needs to be addressed first. These new taxes will do nothing and will never make it to the progames which smoking burdens. Remember tha large law suit against the tobaco companies and how the states said they needed the funds to pay for the burden on their system from smokers? Little to none of that money ever made it to the programs which the states said it would go to. It just became more money that our goverment could wast on pork barrell stuff.