Broken Promises: Obama’s Tax Increase on the Poor
We all know the numbers that President Obama has been throwing around with regards to his tax plan. Nobody making under $250,000 will get a tax increase….Ninety-five percent of all Americans will receive a tax break…. you’ve heard them all by now. But these statements simply are not true, and on April 1st many Americans will find out the hard way. They will see their tax break literally go up in smoke.
That is when the cigarette tax jumps 156%. This is not a tax that will only be paid by the rich. As this article points out 55% of smokers are “working poor.” In other words these are the people that the president was claiming he would take care of. So much for that notion.
Here are the statistics from the article linked to above:
- 55 percent of smokers are “working poor”
- One in four smokers live below the poverty line
- On average, smokers, whose median income is a little more than $36,000, make about 30 percent less than non-smokers.
Those statistics point to a much lower economic target group than the group Obama claimed he would tax, they point to an economic group that Obama claimed he would help. This is a stealth tax being implemented on the people who can afford it the least but who will have no choice but to pay it. You can claim that they have the choice to quit and technically they do, but they are addicted. That is what makes this the worse kind of tax of all. The president is going after a group that he knows will pay the price no matter the cost and he doesn’t care that the majority of smokers are “working poor” and he doesn’t care that 25% of smokers are poverty stricken. He also knows that the majority of non-smokers don’t give a damn about how much a person pays for cigarettes and want to see the cigarette tax increase to punish those annoying, nasty smokers. They disapprove of this lifestyle and so they want to see the smokers punished.
The smokers have all of this working against them. They have been banished to the cold outdoors during the winter as if they have a contagious disease, and they are a group that the politically correct have decided it is acceptable to bear tax increases of astronomical proportions percentage wise.
President Obama claimed that nobody making under $250,000 would see ANY tax increase but as we can see in the numbers above that is a lie. The president’s defenders will claim that he was talking about payroll and income taxes, not this type of tax but here is what Obama claimed:
can make a firm pledge. 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.
He specifically states he WILL NOT RAISE ANY OF YOUR TAXES, that is pretty cut and dry if you ask me. But when his cigarette tax will disproportionately tax the poor one wonders how he can continue with that false claim.
America's Watchtower 
Bah – Tax on the poor, not really. Just because the working poor smoke in greater proportion does not make this a tax on them. It is a tax on a behavior and a product that has a disproportionate cost to society as compared to its benefit (which is what exactly?). This same group of people will need hundreds of thousands of dollars of care during the last 5 years of their life, from a system they did not contribute anywhere near that amount to.
If the people who smoke believe the tax is unfair either 1) grow your own, 2) smoke less, or even better 3) quit.
He is not raising their taxes at all – sales taxes / cigarette taxes is not a personal tax – it is a participatory tax, pay to play.
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Cigarette taxes, fuel & energy taxes, and soon we’ll probably have some new health insurance mandates for the benefit of our corporate overlords. I guess taxing the poor is OK as long as the maintain their aura of superiority and only tax the “stupid” poor: smokers, people who drive to work, and people who can’t afford/don’t think health insurance is worthwhile.
BTW: Cigarettes are effective in treating physical pain, anxiety, digestive discomfort and nicotine is a neurostimulant to boot.
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This article is really clutching at straws here. I am poor and I am a smoker and I really don’t see this issue in the same light as this author. Increasing taxes on tobacco provides smokers with an incentive to quit as well as producing extra income that we need to pay off Bush-era deficits and the further debt that’s going to be incurred by the stimulus plan. As someone who thinks these things are slightly more important than whether or not our president broke a promise to the “smoking poor” you’ll excuse me for coming out and saying that the author here is simply full of crap. If this causes a few more people like me to kick the habit and puts a dent in the tobacco companies’ collective change purse, I’ll be a happy camper.
One who enjoys the extra money in my pocket that’s NOT going to cigarettes and the money NOT spent on related health problems. And that’s even better than any tax cut IMO.
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First, the government doesn’t give a damn whether you quite or not, that is not the goal, the government doesn’t want you to quit. Second, if people do quit then the government will not be taking in as much money from the cigarette tax and will begon to look for other revenue streams.
The government should look at the radical idea of not spending money that they don’t have, as you must do if you are trully poor, and not raising taxes on people simply to feed the government addiction of irresponsible spending. They are using your addiction to feed their addiction.
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I can agree with your reply a lot more than your article. While I do find it a little off putting to say the government doesn’t care if we quit or not (a healthy work force is a productive workforce, and it’s a well publicized fact that health problems related to smoking are a major cause of concern amongst US employers, hence the ever increasing smoking bans in businesses, public places, government agencies, etc) I can certainly say that the majority of people will smoke their way through this tax increase without a second thought. Besides, the tobacco lobby is a powerful one and they certainly wouldn’t let the government step on their turf too harshly. And obviously the government wouldn’t need this extra money if it hadn’t dug itself into such a deep hole in the first place, but can we ever dare to dream of a day when people in power will practice fiscal responsibility? I’m not placing any bets.
However my point is, on a scale of evil to REALLY evil, I could see the president doing worse than this, and I can agree with this. It makes sense to me. I certainly wouldn’t use it as a banner to proclaim the president a two-faced liar, which is basically all your article was doing. And I certainly don’t see this tax as a below the belt punch to me where it hurts the most. I’m poor, I smoke, I’m vulnerable, right? The president is targeting my vulnerability, right? Perhaps he’ll tax the water next, statistics show that 100% of people in lower income households like to drink…I can see him rubbing his hands together under that evil grin as we speak.
I’m sorry but I don’t find this worth the 553 words you’ve typed here. Let him tax my tobacco. Now if he starts taxing the nicotine patch…
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PS, I love your user name, it made me smile.
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Thank you. It’s rare I come up with something I find witty.
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Mr pink eyes, I think you are not seeing forest for the trees here on this one. This is a part of a more insidious behavior. This is a case where they are using taxes to control people’s behavior and in the end, it gives the government more power.
I find it surprising that few conservatives are even pointing this out. The only explanation is that it is a sin tax. I’m wondering if this tax increase is going to be enough to create a black market.
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I agree with you completely even though I didn’t mention your point when I wrote this. Speaking of sin taxes, it won’t stop here either. There is talk in Massachusetts of taxing soda, candy, and even flavored water, it is being called a sugar tax, under the idea of raising taxes on items that are considered “sinful.” If these items are targeted for taxation with the excuse that the public needs to pay more for them because they are unhealthy than alcohol would be the next logical step and we all know that it won’t stop there.
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Ya, black market. Pot will be legal, and cigarettes will not. What kind of a trade off is that? The grocery store in NH where I buy cigarettes had half empty shelves because the distributor would not buy more until after Apr. 1st. What I see here is jobs being lost in VA, KY, etc. It’s easy! just quit! But there will always be people who smoke. And the gubment knows it.
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We can complain all we want but until the average voter who I figure is as ignorant as the average smoker changes their behavior, we are destined for the ash bin of history. We need to take our country back, that can be done at the polls by voting these socialists out. Eventually even the people that buy what Obama is selling won’t have the money to pay for it. Tomorrow’s election in NY is going to be big. It will set the tone for the rest of the losers that “represent” us to get it together or they are out as well.
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I guess firing the head of General Motors must be a real coup for a power-mad narcissist like Obama- what a rush. And his Marxist-professor mentors would be SO proud-
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I’m sure his replacement Mr Fritz will be real motivated taking-on such a herculean task with the whole country looking over his shoulder, while working 15 hrs/day for a buck-a-year… then having 90% of his bonus confiscated by congress.
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And he’s the current COO, how’s that a change? This cheap symbolism, so typical of Obama, will likely do more harm than good.
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National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA)
http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k2/Tob/tob.htm
35 percent of persons with total combined family incomes of less than $9,000 reported smoking cigarettes during the past month compared with 29 percent of those from families with incomes between $20,000 and $39,999 and 19 percent of those from families with incomes of $75,000 or more.
It is obvious to any thinking person that he broke his pledge to not tax the poor. If people could get off their (tobacco hating) high horse they would see this tax increase for what it is. For the record cigarettes are worthless killers but this is not about tobacco or health. It is an excuse for him to extract money from the poor with the approval of the people who are not having their taxes raised.
Think people! Don’t get caught by their “it’s for their own good” spin.
Packaged cigarette tax is not the only tax increase. Packaged cigarette taxes may have went up 156% but roll your own loose tobacco (Prince Albert, Tops, Bugler, etc) went up 2000%+. Yes that is three zeros.
Who smokes roll your own tobacco? Duuh.. the rich? The middle class? Oh could it be THE DIRT POOR?
Oh and pipe tobacco only doubled. Whens the last time you saw a dirt poor person smoking a pipe?
Notice whenever you hear or read about this tax increase the argument for the increase is always about the evils of tobacco. Why would they pick tobacco to tax? In their own words because it’s dependable. Why is it dependable? Because it contains an addictive drug that these poor people must have.
No matter what is said it will not change what was done. He’s broken his word this soon into his term so I wonder what is next? no WHO is next? You? If you fall into a category of people who other people look down on you better watch out.
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I think this will backfire on the govt in the long run. The extra expense will persuade a lot of people to quit. I guess that is a good thing right now. Look 20 years into the future. Imagine the country will all these people now living longer. It is no secret that old folks need more care than their kids are willing or able to provide. I predict that the nursing homes will fill up will all those people. They will live longer and run out of resources, and the states will have to pick up the cost of their care.
I suspect that the costs in the future will cost far more than the extra taxes they will collect at this time. And of course, 20 years from now, that tax money will long be spent.
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you aint seen nottin yet sucka
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Each disposable smoking is roughly the same as one and one half to two packs of store-bought cigarettes.
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