SPRINGFIELD -- Smokers would pay $1 more a pack in state cigarette taxes under a proposal advancing in the General Assembly today.
A House panel approved an increase in the state cigarette tax to $1.98 a pack, up from the current 98 cents. The measure would phase in the dollar-a-pack increase over two years, 50 cents up on Sept. 1 this year and 50 cents more a year later.
Get the full story: Illinois House panel OKs extra $1 cigarette tax
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Taxing a poorly organized minority group to pay for programs for a selfish majority is always an easy way to go and Illinois is biting at the bait just as fast as President Obama did with the SCHIP tax. Obama and Congress knew that the majority of Americans, mainly nonsmokers, would never put up with being taxed to help poor children so they hefted a 150% tax increase on most smokers and over a 2,000% tax increase on one of the poorest minority groups in America: those smokers so poor that they're forced to "roll your own" from scraps of paper and shreds of tobacco. . . . . . .
ReplyDeleteWill Illinois follow Obama's lead and blatantly deny what they did on national television? Check the 30 second video clip at:
http://pro-choicesmokingdoctor.blogspot.com/2009/07/obama-in-bare-faced-lie.html
to see for yourself and then think about what you want to tell your legislators. . . . . . .
Michael J. McFadden,
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers Brains"