Setting up a veto showdown with President George W. Bush, the U.S. Congress has approved legislation to expand a popular children’s health care program and pay for it with higher taxes on tobacco products.
The Senate solidly backed the bipartisan bill on a vote of 67-29. Bush has vowed to veto it and the Democratic-led Congress lacks the votes to override him. The U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week approved the bill on a 265-159 vote, falling well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.
Backers said the bill would help provide health coverage for some 10 million children. It would raise taxes on tobacco products to pay for the additional coverage. Taxes on a pack of cigarettes would rise by 61 cents to $1 per pack.
The legislation also would provide dental coverage for the first time and allow states to cover pregnant women.
In order to sign up children from higher-income families, states must receiver waivers from the federal government. That the bill allows higher incomes will be this week’s WMD. If high income levels really are an issue, all the government has to do is refuse to issue waivers.
Forcing a conservative president into vetoes – and using that against the Republican candidate to follow – was a core tactic in JFK’s election. Something that could have forced each critically backwards policy into prominence during every week since the 2006 election. Instead, the Dems leave it to Bush to define the “issues”.
#19 – What happens next if the sin tax actually works and people quit smoking? Who gets hit next when they need to find another source of money?
I don’t know… Maybe hermits in the hills with two SUVs and every light in the house on?
But IF, and what huge honkin’ if that is, everyone who smokes quit smoking, the money needed to impact health care drops in the long run as smoking related illness decreases.
#22 – Doesn’t anyone care that this bill cuts coverage for children’s health care in 2013?
Hahaha… You actually think there will be children in 2013? Hahahaha…
#24 – Also, if you do some research you’ll find that cigar smoking is far less destructive than cigarettes. For one, you don’t inhale the smoke into your lungs
At least not after the first time… …Man, did I ever learn a serious lesson that day 🙂
Grey, er, um, ah… what can I say? Although less dangerous than inhaling, smoking a cigar and not inhaling makes little difference to the overall risks. I guess a cigar once and a while isn’t going to hurt you much but depending on it’s size it could be like smoking a whole pack of cigarettes. Also, some of your risk depends on your genes. I’ve lost friends, relatives and neighbors to cancer due to smoking, and my 28 yr old cousin got lung cancer and died because of the the chain smokers where he worked. So I’m jumpy on the subject.
Ah well, I’ll just mind my own business now. 😉
#28 – I do think that as an adult, I should be able to enjoy an occasional cigar.
Me too. And as long as you can afford it, knock yourself out Go buy a Maserati while you’re at it.
The thing is, he could afford it… if not for the arbitrary bullshit tax levied on it that is egregious. Grey isn’t poisoning the Earth or kicking pregnant mothers in the belly… He’s relaxing with a cigar.
Yes, tax it. But don’t tax it out of the range that an average person can’t buy it. It ain’t just him. It’s the retailer that sold it, the transport company that shipped it, the cigar company that made it and the farmers who grew the tobacco.
So many people’s incomes depend on this, and many of them may even have employee sponsored health care, but in an age where the economy is so perilously shaky (and it is) and jobs are in such short supply (and they are) and health care is more valuable than gold, your suggestion would not only fail to fund the health care package you support, but wreck the lives of many many more people so that they’d need this unfundable program too.
But as long as we have a dickwad in office pissing away TWO BILLION DOLLARS A WEEK on a trophy war, the money’s got to come from somewhere.
Preach it Brother. Bush is the single worst president in my lifetime and from what I can tell, the worst in history. He’s beyond incompetent and beyond corrupt. I hope to outlive him so that I may one day visit his grave and spit on it.
But he ain’t the issue here. He’s responsible for so much evil, there is no good reason to make him a scapegoat for other issues too.
Better from nicotine addicts than from people who are buying food for their children.
Nicotine addicts do buy food for kids, and not all cigar smokers are nicotine addicts. Many cigar smokers don’t otherwise smoke, and when they smoke cigars, they smoke infrequently. And they surely don’t deserve to be forced to bear the burden for the health care of others. We all need to shoulder a fraction of that cost, because we all have an interest in the well being of the generation that will change our adult diapers in the future.
“Nicotine addicts do buy food for kids, and not all cigar smokers are nicotine addicts.”
True, but the tax is on tobacco so cigars will get swept into the category. Isn’t it a small price to pay?
>>Many cigar smokers don’t otherwise smoke, and when they
>>smoke cigars, they smoke infrequently.
So then what the fuck’s the problem? How much of a financial burden is a cigar tax really going to be on somebody who puffs one or two stogies a month?
And libs think they’re the ones who fight discrimination.
You want to fund kiddie health care with taxes? Tax food. Then everyone shares the burden equally.
41 – iGlobalWarmer
You want to fund kiddie health care with taxes? Tax food. Then everyone shares the burden equally
Actually that is not a bad idea. Given that much of the food is just a about as bad for us as tobacco products, then that ‘bad’ food maybe should be taxed at the same rate.
For example:
Sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle-560 calories, 32g fat, 11g sat. fat, 1.5g trans fat, 1300mg sodium, 1g fiber.
That stuff is just as deadly poisonous as tobacco, and it should be taxed the same.
#39 – True, but the tax is on tobacco so cigars will get swept into the category. Isn’t it a small price to pay?
Not if the percentage increase on cigars that Greymoon mentions is true… Then its just abusive.
#40 – So then what the fuck’s the problem? How much of a financial burden is a cigar tax really going to be on somebody who puffs one or two stogies a month?
That depends. Is the tax a dollar or twenty dollars? And it ain’t the point… The problem is that you aren’t footing your share of the bill. What do you buy that we can tax so that you put in your share? I don’t smoke. I drink a lot of Diet Coke. Maybe we should tax that so I can pay my share.
Tobacco taxes are fine… but with less than 40% of Americans smoking it seems we’ve once again arbitrarily chosen to make one segment of the society pay for everyone’s problem.
#41 – And libs think they’re the ones who fight discrimination.
We do, and you cannot deny that with a straight face. I’m not suggesting that conservatives don’t, but liberals do.
You want to fund kiddie health care with taxes? Tax food. Then everyone shares the burden equally.
Right, so the poor will have great health care to treat their malnourished kids?
Dude… you gotta pull back on that anti-liberal rhetoric. I’m on your side in this one… sort of… I think… 😉
#2
“However, to think a similar strategy to what was used in JFK’s time could work now is questionable as well.”
Actually, it did help Bush Jr. gain his reelection, They (the Republicans) simply let the gay & lesbians to their marriage thing on election year and forced the Democrats to stick to them lest to risk losing their vote, making sure every homophobe regardless of race, colour & religion vote for Bush on the promise that they will never have to treat gays & lesbians as equals.
Whenever I hear NPR interviewing people bitching about how the prez promises to veto S-chip I start ranting at the radio.
if they dont like it, they’re welcome to leave & go somewhere else.
I’m tired of funding motherfuckers who think their entitled to a free lunch with my tax dollars (aka blacks and mexicans) get the fuck out you whineing useless low-wage statistics!
And yes, you can take that for a racist comment if you’re shallow enough to not actually think about the real problems here. dumbass
>>That depends. Is the tax a dollar or twenty dollars? And it ain’t the
>>point… The problem is that you aren’t footing your share of the bill.
Sure I am. I pay income tax, capital gains tax, social security tax, sales tax, real estate tax, all kinds of taxes.
And if I want to smoke, I’ll pay the damned nicotine tax. I used to smoke, when cigarettes were $027 a pack. I decided if they ever went up to $0.50, I’d quit. They did, and I did.
Your argument about people not doing the sinning not paying their “fair share” is bunk. People who don’t drive don’t pay gas tax, people who don’t work don’t pay income tax, people who don’t own a home don’t pay real estate tax. That’s no argument for not taxing those things.
#43,
…the percentage increase on cigars … Then its just abusive.
No it isn’t. Having someone with a honking fucking stinking cigar blowing the foul smoke into the same air I breath is abusive.
In my thinking that is far more obnoxious and offensive then some strip joint opening within so far of a church.
There is nothing redeeming about tobacco. If firing up a cigar once or twice a month is your idea of relaxing, then maybe you need to re-evaluate a few things. First would be, your “right” to smoke does not include a right to pollute the same air I will breath.
#43 – I think we agree this is a bad way to fund something.
Aside from that, the program itself is yet another shallow attempt to get more people dependent on the government. Democrats love that because that’s how they buy votes.
That’s not a 20000% increase. That would be 10 cents to 2010 cents.
My question is does this tax increase expire in 4 years when Congress’ Democrats decided they wanted to cut spending for children’s health care?
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taxes really stink
its not a childs fault if parents cant afford health care
#18 – “By allowing employers to drop their own coverage plans, nationalized health care would allow them to give their existing employees raises and hire new employees.”
So, where does the massive $ come from for the Univ Healthcare?
we need universal health care, nuff said
Congress can’t be serious. Too bush? They must have abadoned it before hand then.