Amendment to highway bill sideswipes Little Tobacco

[ElboRuum]

27. Wait a minute

They already are encouraged to quit. Encouraged by onerous regressive taxation. Taxation which is a total cash cow for the governments which implement them and, like all regressive taxation, harms the poorest of us the most. So how's that for a mixed message? Out of one side of their mouths they say we should quit, and out the other, they pray we don't lest all that money goes away.

I understand (and support) making law which protects the health of non-smokers, however, I do not and never will support any form of taxation whose intent is punitive against a legal act, whose method is regressive, and whose implementation is so onerous as to be burdensome. You say "encouraged", I say "coerced".

P.S. the health care system is paid for, as it stands now, entirely by the people who use it, whether entirely by themselves or in the form of benefits (which is usually in lieu of greater wages). So until we get that single-payer thing going, well, smokers are no burden on THAT system either.