{"id":27086,"date":"2007-10-08T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T04:50:27","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T04:50:27","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T04:50:27","slug":"schip_the_tobacco_tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2007\/10\/08\/schip_the_tobacco_tax\/","title":{"rendered":"SCHIP & the Tobacco Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s John in Kennesaw, Georgia, John, glad you waited. Welcome to the program.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hey, good afternoon, Rush. You began the program by reading a quote from Hillary some years back, scolding people for pointing out increasing tyranny in this country does not exist.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That wasn\u2019t Hillary. That was Bill Clinton in a commencement address at Michigan State in 2005.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, the point is, there has been increasing tyranny, and it\u2019s primarily due to the left. Now, we may still be the freest nation in the world, but we\u2019re going in the wrong direction. We\u2019re going there at a very brisk pace. Every time these legislatures keep passing new laws criminalizing behavior that used to be okay, these laws come one after the other like waves lapping on the beach with no end in sight. There\u2019s a long list of things we were free to do 30 years ago which are illegal today, and it\u2019s not George Bush and Ronald Reagan, Pat Robertson, or Dr. Dobson who are doing this to us.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Nope. Excellent point.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I mean, if the Bill of Rights were formally repealed, how much different would our lives be today than they already are?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Mmm-hmm. Interesting think piece. Interesting think piece — and if they were ever repealed, could they be rewritten today as they exist?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019ve also noticed, Rush, I did a little bit of radio news, and I spent several years reading police reports. Even laws which you might consider legitimate, police are under pressure to enforce minor violations in a very heavy-handed manner. You know, you\u2019ve got the jail officials claiming they don\u2019t have enough space, the courts claim they can\u2019t deal with the workload, and you\u2019ve got sheriffs deputies and Bartow County, Georgia, arresting an entire car load of people over a piece of marijuana as big as your fingernail. I mean, they can enforce some of these laws by writing tickets and giving warrants, but instead they\u2019re he arresting people. You cannot sleep in your car in a Wal-Mart parking lot without being arrested, and they won\u2019t simply tap on the glass and say, ‘I\u2019m sorry, sir. I have to ask you to move on.\u2019 They make the arrest. You have to go through the process of getting bonded out. It\u2019s a big hassle over a minor violation.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. How, if you\u2019re doing so, do you attribute that to the left?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, I think it\u2019s the pressure on the police to turn in the numbers. They are under pressure due to legislation, due to budget issues. We\u2019re removing from the police the ability and the desire to use rational discretion. There was a case here in Georgia in Kennesaw, not too long ago, where a teenage girl, a recent graduate, had returned to her high school to deliver some items for her brother. On the way out, she saw some old friends and stopped to chat briefly, and the cop arrested her. He didn\u2019t simply say, ‘Ma\u2019am, I have to ask you to leave,\u2019 and this is another thing — we have police in schools. Young people are being brought up to interpret constant police scrutiny as a normal part of life in America. The police are searching lockers, searching automobiles without cause. Young people are being trained to accept this as an acceptable part of life in America.<\/p>\n

RUSH: True. As long as it doesn\u2019t happen to them. As long as it doesn\u2019t happen to them, then they\u2019re fine with it. In a way, it\u2019s like the SCHIP health care program funds health care ‘for the children.\u2019 Forget the argument over how many children for now. How is it going to be paid for, folks? Do you remember that? It\u2019s going to be paid for with a new $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes, and a $10-per-stick tax on cigars. Now, that\u2019s all well and good because those of you who don\u2019t smoke say, ‘Yeah! Yeah, make \u2019em pay for it! Make \u2019em pay for it. They shouldn\u2019t be smoking anyway.\u2019 So as long as the tax doesn\u2019t hit you, then you\u2019re fine with it. But then you\u2019ve gotta realize, that at some point the tax is going to hit you because their objective is to raise everybody\u2019s taxes. But more importantly and specifically on this case, you raise the price of a tax of cigarettes to a breaking point and you\u2019re going to cause people to quit. It\u2019s just going to be too expensive. Taxation always has behavioral consequences. I thought the libs wanted people to stop smoking, anyway. I thought it was unhealthy. It was putting undue pressure on the health care program. Think of this. If this plan gets signed into law at some point, which it will, the people that are going to be paying for it are smokers! They deserve a medal. They deserve our thanks. Yet what\u2019s happening to them? <\/p>\n

While taxes are being raised on a product that they obviously need to continue to sell, but if you\u2019re going to fund a program with the sale of cigarettes, you need what? You need people to buy cigarettes, and what do you need then? Well, if you\u2019re going to make \u2019em buy them, you better allow them to smoke them. If you don\u2019t allow them to smoke them, they\u2019re not going to buy them regardless the cost, and then, voila, guess what? The revenue that they have projected will not be forthcoming from smokers. So guess who\u2019s next in the crosshairs? All of you who are up there applauding the tax increase on smokers. <\/p>\n

So while you\u2019re sitting there thinking you\u2019re not going to get touched by this, you will, because they\u2019re going to tax tobacco and regulate its use out of practical existence. Now, they haven\u2019t considered this. Or maybe they have. They are devious enough to have considered it. They know that they can get the original legislation passed by taxing only smokers. ‘Oh, yeah!\u2019 (applauding) You\u2019ll go for that. ‘I\u2019m all for that.\u2019 They know that smokers are not going to continue to smoke at these high taxes and so forth, plus the increase in prices anyway, and so the revenue is not gonna be there, and then, guess what? It\u2019s ‘hello, your back pocket\u2019 where they\u2019re headed next, because they\u2019re not going to cut the program, they\u2019re not going to reduce the size of the program. They can\u2019t! It\u2019s ‘for the children,\u2019 and then those who were applauding big time out there? Ha-ha-ha-ha! Grab your back pockets, because you are next. So they have essentially, without doing it in a statutory way, criminalized the use of the product that they intend to fund by virtue of its sale, this new children\u2019s health care program. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Ah hell, folks, it\u2019s happening everywhere. I had this story from last week, didn\u2019t get to it, but now it\u2019s apropos. ‘Italy\u2019s economy minister has sparked uproar by offering ‘big babies\u2019 a tax break if they let go of their mother\u2019s apron strings and leave home. More than a third of Italian men over the age of 30 live at home with their parents, a phenomenon blamed on sky-high apartment rents and bleak job prospects as much as a liking for mamma\u2019s cooking. Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa offered to come to the rescue with a 1,000 euro ($1,411) tax break for 20- and 30-something Italians who rent. He said the move was aimed at overgrown male babies.\u2019 Amen for this guy. ‘The comment was immediately condemned by politicians from all shades of the political spectrum who said young Italians could hardly be blamed for a sputtering economy and high rents. ‘This absurd gaffe shows how he\u2019s probably not clear how precarious is the situation afflicting an entire generation — the first generation that has to deal with social conditions worse than those of its parents.” I wonder who made \u2019em that way? There\u2019s a reason that these social conditions are what they are. This is not a phenomenon that\u2019s only occurring in Italy. Big babies are a phenomenon everywhere. <\/p>\n

Walter in Clarksville, Tennessee, next up you are. Welcome to the program, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah, Rush, in postulating with your last little bit on taxes and cigarettes, the state of Tennessee increased taxes on cigarettes by about $6.50 a carton to fund child health care in the state.<\/p>\n

RUSH: What\u2019s a carton of cigarettes cost now, do you know?<\/p>\n

CALLER: It\u2019s up around $40 or so. Close to 40 bucks.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Forty bucks — I\u2019m thinking New York —<\/p>\n

CALLER: With the new tax.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Seventy dollars a carton in New York.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, yeah, but the point here is, Tennessee is a sales tax state. We do not have an income tax. The eight surrounding states all sell these different products at a much lower rate, and so now the tax revenue has dropped dramatically, and, of course, they\u2019ve also outlawed smoking in restaurants and bars around here, but apparently the state now places spotters at sales outlets across state lines and then if you buy more than two cartons of cigarettes they report back to the state police on the Tennessee side and stop you as you are reentering the state and issue you a ticket. And now, this morning, they are actually reporting on WLAC in Nashville that they\u2019re doing the same thing to beer sales, and, if you\u2019re bringing back more than X-amount of cases of beer, they are actually confiscating the beer as you cross back into the state of Tennessee. So socialism is alive and well down here in this once proud red state.<\/p>\n

RUSH: (laughing) It\u2019s not funny, but it is.<\/p>\n

CALLER: No, it\u2019s not funny. (laughing)<\/p>\n

RUSH: They\u2019re a victim of their own stupid policies. Taxation causes people to behave in certain ways and people will do what they can to avoid paying them. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s liberal, conservative, they will do whatever they can to avoid paying them. If they want to really increase the sales of cigarettes, let \u2019em smoke \u2019em in public, not in restaurants and bars, but certain places in public, and lower the tax on them.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, you know, it\u2019s not about smoking here. It\u2019s about the state going to excessive things to collect that tax, because it\u2019s not coming into their coffers anymore, and this same thing is going on, and the amount of Tennesseans who go outside the state, like cross over to Kentucky to buy groceries because of a lower sales tax on groceries, those people are not being arrested, yet. And, of course, when we had to go across the line to buy lottery tickets, of course, now the state has a lottery of its own, but before those people were not stopped and arrested. But socialism is alive and well, and growing.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No question, it is. Walter, I appreciate that. And notice it\u2019s built around the vices. Here\u2019s another thing, Walter. You think the nonsmoking public is going to give a care in the world whether smokers going across state lines to buy cigarettes and bring \u2019em back are caught? No. Because smokers have been demonized to such a degree in our society that they\u2019re hated. People are glad the cops are catching those people. This is all part of the trick of how it works. They condition people to this kind of strong-arm law enforcement tactic, and then, eventually, when it happens to other people, they\u2019ve got no recourse because they went along with it in the first place. Eventually it does cause a rebellion at some point down the line if it\u2019s excessive. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Here\u2019s John in Kennesaw, Georgia, John, glad you waited. Welcome to the program. CALLER: Hey, good afternoon, Rush. You began the program by reading a quote from Hillary some years back, scolding people for pointing out increasing tyranny in this country does not exist. RUSH: That wasn\u2019t Hillary. 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