I wonder how much money can be made in cigarette smuggling to these high taxed areas

This is Unamerican!

Keep government out of my Medicaid!

What could possibly go wrong?

one dollar cheetos tax coming soon.

bim1154: And they are talking about adding another 2 dollars to license plate renewal bringing it up to $101. I swear, this fu(king state is a bottomless pit of spending. (and corruption).

You are correct. Considering a move outta here.

I'm OK with that

This is good news for Missouri, Kentucky, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana cigarette sellers.

And of course by "Medicaid" they mean "the general fund."

meanwhile they could decriminalize & regulate sale of 420 and have Mad income nearly overnight. wishful thinking considering you can't even smoke your cigarette in a farking Bar, disco or anywhere else public that tax paying adults live their lives.

I say we kill of this Medicaid right now. Can't the private market do better? The government can't seem to turn a profit on it.

/Death Panels!

bim1154: SpikeStrip: one dollar cheetos tax coming soon.

And if it hasn't gone through yet, soft drinks too. I think they may have taxed bottled water, but can't remember.

I believe California is implementing (if they have not already) a tax on bottled drinks that are in 'non-decomposable containers'

How is this spiffy?

They are short 2.7 BILLION in funding, and this generates $800 million....at least until the next batch of mass-quitters over the price increase happens. They've already cut 1.6 billion in funding. This is also just ~future~ budgeting. Go ahead and ask them how far they are in the hole already over owed money to various social services.


//why did I come back to this state....

RibbyK: bim1154: And they are talking about adding another 2 dollars to license plate renewal bringing it up to $101. I swear, this fu(king state is a bottomless pit of spending. (and corruption).

That's about half the rate for a new car in California. Everytime I visit Chicago I think "what crappy roads", then I remember this story: Link

CSB I worked with Joey Palumbo on highways 47 & 176 many moons ago, nice guy but obviously following in his father's footsteps.


Known as "Orange Crush" now. Apparently the Palumbo name has taken a bit of a hit....

FuturePastNow: rfronk: bim1154: And they are talking about adding another 2 dollars to license plate renewal bringing it up to $101. I swear, this fu(king state is a bottomless pit of spending. (and corruption).

My tags are $300 this month here in Kansas. $220 for a 6 year old vehicle and $80 for a 15 year old vehicle.

I'm a tax preparer, I had a client with income in Illinois and Missouri get frothing mad about our state income tax going up from 3% to 5%. When I pointed out his MO tax rate was 6% he kind of deflated.

People in Illinois complain about everything, but most of it is more expensive elsewhere.

More tax on cigarettes? Good. Buncha whiners.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn here on my Fark, no way.

BronyMedic: Donnchadha: Keep government out of my Medicaid!

Considering a huge burdon on Medicaid and Medicare is caused by elderly smokers with COPD, and the majority of those cases are caused by life-long cigarette use, I'm ok with this.

But, there's 2 obvious problems to this plan that States with cigarette taxes have found out the hard way

1) When has any State spent 'allocated' funds the way they're supposed to? A good chunk (if not a majority) of that $1/pack will go to projects that have absolutely nothing to do with Medicaid, but benefit state politicians via pork and pet projects. Even if it's written into the law that 100% of these funds *must* go to Medicaid, politicians will decrease the amount of funding Medicaid gets from other sources, since it now has a 'dedicated' revenue stream.

2) Yes, over the long term the number of smokers will decrease if you add more taxes to cigarettes. Which does lower the need to pay for their long-term health care through Medicaid. Eventually though, you will get to a point where having less people buying the taxed product will harm your budget. Sure, Medicaid will require less funds, theoretically keeping pace with the decrease in tax revenue, but if you see Point #1, the taxes will be going to support more than just Medicaid. And politicians will be loathe to give up funding for their own pet projects that benefit them. So, the funding for other stuff will remain the same, having grown over the years by dipping into the extra tax source, and the budget for social programs (Medicaid, education, social services) will be slashed to cover up the new shortfall.

Now, that's not to say the cigarette tax won't work, just that it's a spiraling path that can hurt the very programs it's been enacted to help if left unchecked and unmonitored. California has passed the tipping point in terms of cigarette taxes and smoking bans and is starting to work to repeal some of the taxes and restrictions in order to bring the revenue back.