But, you know, we told you so, and even the Associated Press is not able to keep their hopeNchange enthusiasm with this story
One of President Barack Obama’s campaign pledges on taxes went up in puffs of smoke Wednesday.
The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama’s promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.
This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich.
To be sure, Obama’s tax promises in last year’s campaign were most often made in the context of income taxes. Not always.
“I can make a firm pledge,” he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. “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 repeatedly vowed “you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.”
Now in office, Obama, who stopped smoking but has admitted he slips now and then, signed a law raising the tobacco tax nearly 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes, to $1.01. Other tobacco products saw similarly steep increases.
With all the massive spending Obama and The Donkeys have done and are planning to do – $787 billion Porkulus, $410 Omnibus, Obama’s $3.6 trillion 2010 proposed budget (I am hearing reports that the Dems wanted to add more, making it $4.1 trillion), creating nationalized/socialized health care, human induced global warming plans, etc and so on – you can expect this to be the first of many, many, many tax increases. So far, there is no sighting of The Big O’Gaffers supposed $1,000 tax rebate, otherwise known as a welfare check. I guess that whopping $13 savings per week on our taxes, turning to $8 in 2010, is supposed to mollify us. But, this will hit the poor and middle class the hardest. Notice that these increases never hit cigar smokers?
“No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama’s plan will see one single penny of their tax raised,” Joe Biden said, “whether it’s their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax.”
The Democratic campaign used such statements to counter Republican assertions that Obama would raise taxes in a multitude of direct and indirect ways, recalled Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
The question of the day is, what is the next tax to get raised? Of course, many of those that are coming will be direct taxes on you, the consumer, but will be passed on in the form of higher prices, which will allow Obama and all his Zombarry’s to quible that it was not a tax on those making $250…zzzzzz. Sorry, that talking point puts me to sleep. Somebody has to pay for this agenda, and it will not just be our grand-kids.
My bet is on higher gas prices from Dems raising taxes on Big Oil.
Hate to tell you Teach but you are just blowing smoke. No one cares that the taxes are going up, Obama STILL has the high approval ratings. Americans do not like smokers they foul our air I would like to see all smoking banned from ANY public areas, like streets.
Did Obama and Biden promise not to raise taxes, John?
While the MSM will NEVER point out this fact, the tax on tobacco essentially amounts to a tax on the poor and lower middle class. A report out yesterday showed that as an individual’s income increased, their tendency to be a smoker decreased, ergo this HUGE increase in taxes equates to taxing the hell out of the people that Barry claims to care about so much.
While I agree that smoking is a disgusting habit, the fact remains that as long as tobacco is around, the government will never ban it completely because they make way too much money off of it in terms of tax revenue. I will avoid it as much as I can, but I am also not about to tell someone they can’t engage in a perfectly legal activity just because I don’t happen to agree with it.
Well, John isn’t buying it, mbp. He is spinning like a top, just like all the other liberals are, but, none of them will acknowledge that this is a broken promise.
I hate this tax increase because of what it helps to fund. It is not our responsibility to provide health care for kids born to people who couldn’t afford to support them in the first place. Each state should be responsible for health care for the poor. Not federal government or federal tax increases.
You’re right we should expect federal tax in gasoline to be increased. Just in time for summer driving season. Why not? People may cut back a little, but these tax increases aren’t designed to get us to stop smoking or drive less. The sole purpose is to take away more of our money so the Obama regime can fund its new vision of America.